Hurl yourself at goals above your head and bear the lacerations that come when you slip and make a fool of yourself. Try always, as long as you have breath in your body, to take the hard way–and work, work, work to build yourself into a rich, continually evolving entity.

If the body is a temple, then tattoos are its stained glass windows.

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

Why honey, don't you want to get dressed?" My mother took care never to tell me to do anything. She would only reason with me sweetly, like one intelligent, mature person with another. It's almost three in the afternoon." I'm writing a novel," I said. "I haven't got time to change into this and change into that.

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.

I have been holding a dialogue with myself and girding myself to stand fast without running.

I'm about fifty years behind as far as my preferences go and I must say that the poets who excite me most are the Americans. There are very few contemporary English poets that I admire.