More and more people think of the critic as an indispensable middle man between writer and reader and would no more read a book alone if they could help it than have a baby alone.

A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

The ways we miss our lives are life.

The people who live in a golden age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.

It is always hard for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend but because their poems are bad.

Read at whim! Read at whim!

We can't tell our life from our wish

It is better to entertain an idea than to take home to live with you for the rest of your life.

Pain comes from the darkness. And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

Except from the Americans—but every pearl has its oyster.

If any morality or ethics does not include kindness as their fundamental ingredient, then they are just an absurdity.

A prayer couched in the words of the soul, is far more powerful than any ritual.

Chasing a man is not winning. The only thing you win is the loss of your dignity. Confidence is knowing your value, instead of expecting a man’s love to provide you with value.

If a wizard should take up residence in your garden, and requests food, you are obliged to feed him.

My evolution as a writer? Mother said "stop talking like that", teachers said "you're weird", readers say "best book ever

I understood that no one could have lobbed such a stinging wad of shame out into the world without having a considerable personal reserve of it to draw on.

To the patient, any operation is momentous.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant

I'm not really a flirt; I just try to be myself.

We have to open our minds and be ready for the changes.