Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.

Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.

I used to try and concentrate the poem so much that there wasn't a word that wasn't essential. This leads to becoming boring and constipated.

Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say.

Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.

Of course, Behaviourism 'works'. So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.

The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.