Poetry, I think, intensifies the reader’s experience. If it’s a humorous facet of the story, poetry makes it more exuberant. If it’s a sad facet, poetry can make it more poignant.
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
In general, questions are fine; you can always seize upon the parts of them that interest you and concentrate on answering those. And one has to remember when answering questions that asking questions isn’t easy either, and for someone who’s quite shy to stand up in an audience to speak takes some courage.
Revision has its own peculiar pleasures and its own peculiar frustrations. The ground rules are already established; the characters already exist. You don’t have to bring the characters to life, but you do have to make them more convincing.
Put your backbone where your wishbone is.
I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
In life’s brief game to be a winner A man must have…oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.
In a painting, you can’t make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist’s stroke.
I rarely listen to music while writing. If I don’t like it, it bothers me, and if I like it, it absorbs me so much I can’t write.
You have to learn a few things, which you do along the way, but basically, poetry is a matter of the ear. Iambic pentameters or what constitutes a stanza comes naturally – your ears will know.
The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.
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