Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?

You can talk good ideas out of existence.

You have to learn a few things, which you do along the way, but basically, poetry is a matter of the ear. Iambic pentameters or what constitutes a stanza comes naturally - your ears will know.

In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I've remained an Indian.

I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.

Fiction basically is a form of gossip where you want to enter other people's lives, the lives of people you don't know, and you want to know what's going to happen to them.

Revision has its own peculiar pleasures and its own peculiar frustrations. The ground rules are already established; the characters already exist. You don't have to bring the characters to life, but you do have to make them more convincing.