It's hard enough for me to write what I want to write without me trying to write what you say they want me to write which I don't want to write.

The rest of my days I'm going to spend on the sea. And when I die, I'm going to die on the sea. You know what I shall die of? I shall die of eating an unwashed grape. One day out on the ocean I will die — with my hand in the hand of some nice-looking ship's doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch.

But since I have a poet's weakness for symbols, I am using this character also as a symbol; he is the long-delayed but always expected something that we live for.

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

The helpless can't help the helpless.

I don't believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me.

The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!