Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at Antony and Cleopatra; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.

And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.

Am I a weed, carried this way, that way, on a tide that comes twice a day without a meaning?

war is a man's game ... the killing machine has a gender and it is male.

Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can't dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than any words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.

A writer should give direct certainty; explanations are so much water poured into the wine.