I am apt to be harsh in my secret judgments of others, seeing them as defective because they are not enough like me.

For most of my life, I have wanted broad impact but now, at 72, I'm not so sure that's always my first priority.

The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.

Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot.

The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'.

... I vowed that I would always respect the right of an individual to kill himself. Whether suicide was a moral or immoral act I no longer felt sure, but of the dignity of its intransigence I was convinced.

If someone in my family is getting emotionally bent out of shape, I've had to learn to adapt.