The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.

The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.

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 live in a trans period. Contemporary issues of sexuality, for example - the exciting aspects of them - have to do with transgenderedness. And there's trans-nationality. There are people like me, for example. I mean, what am I? Am I Indian? Am I American? And I'm not alone in being between things.

You probably have to split yourself in various ways just in order to survive, and to think of yourself as a multitude.

I resist thinking of myself as a teacher. I think of myself as a writer who has pulled a fast one and hoodwinked this institution into giving me a job and health insurance.