When I Was Asked To Be Writer

A Terrible Thing About Getting Oldish Is That Your Friends Start Dying, And In The Last Ten Years I Have Lost Seven Or Eight Of My Closest.

I Don't Think Of Myself All The Time.

All I Write About Is What's Happened To Me And To People I Know, And The Better I Know Them, The More Likely They Are To Be Written About.

I Don't Care Whether A Book Is A First Edition Or Not. I'm Not A Bibliophile In That Word's Natural Sense.

And Some Poets Are Far Better Read Off The Page Because They're Very Bad Speakers. I'm Thinking Of One In Particular Whom I Won't Name, A Good Poet, And He Reads In Such A Dry, Boring Way, Your Eyes Start Drooping.