Historically, there are hierarchies of purity. Certain aspects of poetry are very, very pure. The lyric poem can't be anything but the lyric poem.

We all think of ourselves as our subjectivity, our consciousness.

Technology is transforming everything. Who knows what it's doing, we don't really understand it.

You don't think of yourself as your external representation, or even your national origin or anything like that. You don't reduce yourself to that. That's kind of unthinkable.

Historically, there are hierarchies of purity. Certain aspects of poetry are very, very pure. The lyric poem can't be anything but the lyric poem.

Society imposes an identity on you because of the way you look. Your struggle as a self has to do with an identity being imposed on you that you know is not your identity.

Language itself is a mask. It's the first mask in the series of invented selves - they've come right out of language. The way you speak changes you, because when you are speaking, you are representing yourself in a certain way.