If you believed yourself to be a writer of eminence, you are now assured of being over the hill-not a sturdy mountain flower but a little wilted lily of the valley.

...until summer becomes ein Zimmer in einem Traum -- a room in a dream.

As Borges has taught us, all the books in the library are contemporary. Great poems are like granaries: they are always ready to enlarge their store.

...reduction is precisely what a work of art opposes. Easy answers...annotations, arrows...an oudine of its design...very seriously mislead.

As Rilke observed, love requires a progressive shortening of the senses: I can see you for miles; I can hear you for blocks, I can smell you, maybe, for a few feet, but I can only touch on contact, taste as I devour

Getting even is one reason for writing.