Beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit. To be perfect you have to feel perfect about yourself - avoid trying to be something you're not. ↗
There have been times when I reread - or at least leafed through - something because I'd sent a copy to a friend, and what usually happened was that I noticed dozens and dozens of clumsy phrases I wished I could rewrite. ↗
When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax and the sentence. ↗
The test of an author is not to be found merely in the number of his phrases that pass current in the corner of newspapers... but in the number of passages that have really taken root in younger minds. ↗
I see happiness as a by-product. I don't think you can pursue happiness. I think that phrase is one of the very few mistakes the Founding Fathers made. ↗
I get readings, I sometimes get five a week. You'll feel like a schizophrenic by the end of that week. I don't know who I am any more. You'll be in conversation with a friend and start spitting out dialogue. ↗