Poets, if they're genuine, must keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that's absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their oeuvre.

Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know.

Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring - this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes.

No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.

Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.

All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.