where are the gods the gods hate us the gods have run away the gods have hidden in holes the gods are dead of the plague they rot and stink too there never were any gods there’s only death

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

You solve it as you get older, when you reach the point where you've tasted so much that you can somehow sacrifice certain things more easily, and you have a more tolerant view of things like possessiveness (your own) and a broader acceptance of the pains and the losses.

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

Do as you like with me. I'm your parcel. I have only our address on me. Open me, or readdress me.

I think it was Milosz, the Polish poet, who when he lay in a doorway and watched the bullets lifting the cobbles out of the street beside him realised that most poetry is not equipped for life in a world where people actually die. But some is.

And that's how we measure out our real respect for people—by the degree of feeling they can register, the voltage of life they can carry and tolerate—and enjoy. End of sermon. As Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you.