A ring of gold with the sun in it? Lies. Lies and a grief.

You have to be able to make a real creative life for Yourself, before you can expect anyone Else to provide one ready-made for you.

The only reason I remembered this play was because it had a mad person in it, and everything I had ever read about mad people stuck in my mind, while everything else flew out.

What do you have in mind after you graduate?" What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I'd be a professor and write books of poems or write books of poems and be an editor of some sort. Usually I had these plans on the tip of my tongue. "I don't really know," I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true.

I like people, but to learn about one individual always appeals to me more than anything.

For the few little successes I may seem to have, there are acres of misgivings and self-doubt.

There is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get.