The progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system.

He could not stand. It was not That he could not thrive, he was born With everything but the will – That can be deformed, just like a limb. Death was more interesting to him. Life could not get his attention.

Where white is black and black is white, I won.

He was his own leftover, the spat-out scrag. He was what his brain could make nothing of.

...imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic.

The world's decay where the wind's hands have passed, And my head, worn out with love, at rest In my hands, and my hands full of dust.

In the pit of red You hid from the bone-clinic whiteness But the jewel you lost was blue.