You don't have to be a good person to be a good writer--history shows it's better if you're not--but you have to understand your badness.

With Shakespeare and poetry, a new world was born. New dreams, new desires, a self consciousness was born. I desired to know to know myself in terms of the new standards set by these books.

Many have changed so much that they have lost the magic of the dream that carried them on their own bootstraps.

To get from people you had to give a piece of yourself, a real piece that mattered. Just being nice was not enough.

To live with the conscious knowledge of the shadow of uncertainty, with the knowledge that disaster or tragedy could strike at any time; to be afraid and to know and acknowledge your fear, and still to live creatively and with unstinting love: that is to live with grace.

You don't have to be a good person to be a good writer--history shows it's better if you're not--but you have to understand your badness.

Mom had the kind of love for her that you could feel, like it was part of the atmosphere