There is more magic in sin if it is not committed.

I felt the beginning of a passion, hopeless in the long run, but very nourishing, for identifying myself with people who were not my own, and whose lives were governed by ideas alien to mine.

A natural New Yorker is a native of the present tense.

Queen Victoria - a mixture of national landlady and actress.

I am under the spell of language, which has ruled me since I was 10.

It is the role of the poet to look at what is happening in the world and to know that quite other things are happening.

It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.