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.

It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.

I felt dumb and subdued. Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.

There was a beautiful time.

I think writers are the most narcissistic people. Well, I musn't say this, I like many of them, a great many of my friends are writers.

You ask me why I spend my life writing? Do I find entertainment? Is it worthwhile? Above all, does it pay? If not, then, is there a reason?... I write only because there is a voice within me. That will not be still.

I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy.