I know what his poetry will be about. What poetry is always about. The cruelty of the poet's mistress. — Martin Amis

Of all the forces, love is the strangest. ... Love can make a woman pick up a bus, or it can crush a man under the weight of a feather. Or it just lets everything go on as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow. That's the kind of force love is.

Someone watches over us when we write. Mother. Teacher. Shakespeare. God.

People are chaotic quiddities living in one cave each. They pass the hours in amorous grudge and playback and thought-experiment. At the camp fire they put the usual fraction on exhibit, and listen to their own silent gibber about how they're feeling and how they're going down. We've been there. Death helps. Death gives us something to do. Because it's a fulltime job looking the other way.