Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.

In spite of everything, I still have my good old sense of humor.

I would say everything should be able to come into a poem, but I can't put toothbrushes into a poem, I really can't!

Not easy to state the change you made. If I'm alive now, I was dead, Though, like a stone, unbothered by it.

I feel that very strongly: having been an academic, having been tempted by the invitation to stay on to become a Ph.D., a professor, and all that, one side of me certainly does respect all disciplines, as long as they don't ossify.

I am made, crudely, for success.

If there's anything I look down on, it's a man in a blue outfit.