If You Write Well, You Don't Have

To Live A Very Long Time... Is Supposed To Be The Desired Object Of All Human Life. But It Is Not. The Main Thing Is To Ride The Flood Tide... How Glorious It Is To Create! For Those Few Moments Of A Lifetime When The Stream Is Running Full And Deep: Those Are The Justification For Everything.

Flight Is The Only Truly New Sensation Than Men Have Achieved In Modern History.

It Takes An Awful Lot Of Time For Me To Write Anything. I Have Endless Drafts, One After Another; And I Try Out 50, 75, Or A Hundred Variations On A Single Line Sometimes. I Work On The Process Of Refining Low-grade Ore. I Get Maybe A Couple Of Nu Ggets Of Gold Out Of 50 Tons Of Dirt. It Is Tough For Me. No, I Am Not Inspired.

Yet Technique Matters, Even So. God Uses It, For A Buffalo Is Not A Leopard.

Poetry Is A Hazardous Occupation, Very Hazardous. There May Be Bad Things In There Inside You That Maybe You Can't Handle.