Every Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches.

Human life is too difficult for people.

I grew up in the prolonged survival of the great age of the horse, with harness and saddle and sleigh bells and horse pictures, not as antiques but the facts of our lives.

I have lectured at Town Hall N.Y., The Library of Congress, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Wellesley, Columbia, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana State University, Colorado, Stanford, and scores of other places.

I had been warned about Jews by my gentile friends - they did terrible things with knives to boys.

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

I wanted to write poetry almost a little more than I wanted to eat.