If You Want To Do Things, Do

I Didn't Intend. The Word "intend" Is The Wrong Word For What I Do. It's Just That It's Something You Do, And You Can't Not Do. If You Want To Do It, And You Don't Intend To, You Do It Anyway. The Word "intend" Is Wrong. The Word "pressure" Is Right. It's Like Any Art Form.

I Was A Fantastic Student Until Ten, And Then My Mind Began To Wander.

This Hill Crossed With Broken Pines And Maples Lumpy With The Burial Mounds Of Uprooted Hemlocks (hurricane Of '38) Out Of Their Rotting Hearts Generations Rise Trying Once More To Become The Forest Just Beyond Them Tall Enough To Be Called Trees In Their Youth Like Aspen A Bouquet Of Young Beech Is Gathered They Still Wear Last Summer's Leaves The Lightest Brown Almost Translucent How Their Stubbornness Has Decorated The Winter Woods.

I Do Lots Of Reading And Speaking At Many Universities About Literature And Also About Politics, Which Is As Much A Part Of My Life As The Literature.

People Say, "why Do You Call Your Kids Up, Why Do You Worry Like That?" And I Say, "i Was Raised Like That." My Grandmother Looked At My Father With The Same Eyes When He Was Sixty And She Was Eighty-five.