“There must be transients in the bird world too, rumple-feathered outcasts that naturally seek out each other’s company in inferior and dying trees.”

“… that sour blend of loneliness and lust for recognition, shyness and extravagance, deep insecurity and self-intoxicated egomania, that drives poets and writers out of their rooms to seek each other out, to rub shoulders with one another, bully, joke, condescend, feel each other, lay a hand on a shoulder or an arm round a waist, to chat and argue with little nudges, to spy a little, sniff out what is cooking in other pots, flatter, disagree, collude, be right, take offence, apologise, make amends, avoid each other, and seek each other’s company again.”

“Little things like time and generations don’t matter very much with good friends who are fond of each other’s company.”

“The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.”

“and the sad notes floated out to thepatio and hung in the trees like birds too tired to fly”

“Too tired for company,You seek a solitudeYou are too tired to fill.”