“Fictional characters soon take on a life of their own. They run with the bit between their teeth.”

“All writers would like to be overrated in their own lifetimes.”

“It is not an easy thing to alter the trajectory of your life. People have expectations on your behalf. You come to believe them yourself.”

“Believe me, if you’re a teenager, you’re always in the damned woods. Literally, you’re in the woods — probably too much you’re in the woods. And metaphorically you’re in the woods, in your life.”

“Poetry is a language adequate to one's experience.”

“In dreams begin possibilities.”

“...and he realized that he missed the old days of sailing, the ship almost willowy and hesitant, responsive to winds and weathers - not this hard, unthinking, mechanical drive toward a goal or destinations, so typical of the age itself.”