The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it.

The past is always a rebuke to the present.

Tell me a story of deep delight.

History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that.

Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

Your business as a writer is not to illustrate virtue but to show how a fellow may move toward it or away from it.

For the truth is a terrible thing.