Better hope deferred than none.

To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.

If I were in the unenviable position of having to study my work my points of departure would be the "Naught is more real ..." and the "Ubi nihil vales ..." both already in Murphy and neither very rational.

Dear incomprehension, it's thanks to you I'll be myself, in the end.

I always thought old age would be a writer’s best chance. Whenever I read the late work of Goethe or W. B. Yeats I had the impertinence to identify with it. Now, my memory’s gone, all the old fluency’s disappeared. I don’t write a single sentence without saying to myself, ‘It’s a lie!’ So I know I was right. It’s the best chance I’ve ever had.

They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

If there is one question I dread, to which I have never been able to invent a satisfactory reply, it is the question what am I doing.