I was a very religious child - I went to synagogue at least once, sometimes twice, a day. And I remember my religiousness as good - I think religion is good for children, especially educated children, because it allows for imagination, a whole imaginative world apart from the practical world.

And as we stray further from love, we multiply the words. Had we remained together we could have become a silence.

My poems are political in the deeper sense of the word. Political means to live in your time, to be a man of your time.

Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding.

What are you going to do now? You'll collect loves like stamps. You've got doubles and no one will trade with you. And you've got damaged ones.

The memory of my father is wrapped up in white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day of work. Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits out of his hat, he drew love from his small body.

The phrase I like to use to describe my sense of time-a play on comparative literature - is comparative time.