Like Species, Couples Die Out Or Evolve.

All Women Are Misfits. We Do Not Fit Into This World Without Amputations.

Troubles Cured You Salty As A Country Ham, Smoky To The Taste, Thick-skinned And Tender Inside.

I'm Probably The Only Novelist Who Has Ever Written About Political Fugitives Who Actually Knew A Lot About Them, Had Contact With Them, And Had A Realistic Notion Of How They Survived.

Now That I Am In My Forties, She [my Mother] Tells Me I'm Beautiful; Now That I Am In My Forties, She Sends Me Presents And We Have The Long, Personal And Even Remarkably Honest Phone Calls I Always Wanted So Intensely I Forbade Myself To Imagine Them. How Strange. Perhaps Shaw Was Correct And If We Lived To Be Several Hundred Years Old, We Would Finally Work It All Out. I Am Deeply Grateful. With My Poems, I Finally Won Even My Mother. The Longest Wooing Of My Life.

Every Poet Has A Certain Amount Of "stuff." That's What You Draw From For Imagery. The More Stuff You Know Well, Not Simply Intellectually But Sensually, Emotionally, Intimately, The Wider The Pool From Which You Draw.