No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

You reading over my shoulder, peering beneath / My writing arm.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words.

No one ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have tried while trying to write one