Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong.

The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.

It seems to be a law in American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic.

It's good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you will not talk so much, so loudly, so brilliantly, so charmingly, so utterly shamelessly foolishly.

Life is always walking up to us and saying, "Come on in, the living's fine," and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.

Poetry is so vital to us until school spoils it.

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses.