I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover, and that I would never learn a word of shorthand. If I never learned shorthand I would never have to use it.

The one man in the room who was as big as his poems, huge, with hulk and dynamic chunks of words.

Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.

The artist's life nourishes itself on the particular, the concrete.

It won't happen yet, Ellen mused, mashing cooked carrots for Jill's lunch. Breakups seldom do. It will unfold slowly, one little tell-tale symptom after another like some awful, hellish flower.

You are a dream; I hope I never meet you.

Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience.