When I see young men doing so wonderfully well in athletics, I don't feel angry at them. I feel jealous of them. I wish that some of my boys in writing would do the same thing.... You must have form - performance. The thing itself is indescribable, but it is felt like athletic form. To have form, feel form in sports - and by analogy feel form in verse. One works and waits for form in both. As I said, the person who spends his time criticizing the play around him will never write poetry. He will write criticism.

The old dog barks backward without getting up; I can remember when he was a pup.

The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.

No memory of having starred Atones for later disregard, Or keeps the end from being hard. Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship at your side Tha…

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know wh…

I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it.

The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper-whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.