“You want to be a poet and not die.”

“Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.”

“The truth is simple, you do not die from love. You only wish you did.”

“I've not ceased being fearful, I've gone ahead despite the pounding in my heart that says: turn back, turn back, you'll die if you go too far.”

“We drove to the hotel and said goodbye. How hypocritical to go upstairs with a man you don't want to fuck, leave the one you do sitting there alone, and then, in a state of great excitement, fuck the one you don't want to fuck while pretending he's the one you do. That's called fidelity. That's called monogamy. That's called civilization and its discontents.”

“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.”

“But I am wise if not yet quite old, wanting the poem more than the lover, wanting words more than the sticky dew men secrete in their private places.”