“I have been both overpraised and underpraised. I assume by the time I finish writing — and I plan to go on writing until I'm 90 or gaga — it will all equal itself out… You can't involve yourself with the vicissitudes of fashion or critical response.”

Binelli, Mark. &quot;Teenager of the Year&quot; http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5940065/teenager_of_the_year. Rolling Stone. August 27 2003. Retrieved October 25 2006. <br class="br">On Metamorphosis (2003).

On Writing Poetry (1995)
Context: I no longer feel I'll be dead by thirty; now it's sixty. I suppose these deadlines we set for ourselves are really a way of saying we appreciate time, and want to use all of it. I'm still writing, I'm still writing poetry, I still can't explain why, and I'm still running out of time. Wordsworth was sort of right when he said, "Poets in their youth begin in gladness/ But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness." Except that sometimes poets skip the gladness and go straight to the despondency. Why is that? Part of it is the conditions under which poets work — giving all, receiving little in return from an age that by and large ignores them — and part of it is cultural expectation — "The lunatic, the lover and the poet," says Shakespeare, and notice which comes first. My own theory is that poetry is composed with the melancholy side of the brain, and that if you do nothing but, you may find yourself going slowly down a long dark tunnel with no exit. I have avoided this by being ambidextrous: I write novels too. But when I find myself writing poetry again, it always has the surprise of that first unexpected and anonymous gift.

Source: The Funny Thing Is...

The Confession (c. 452?)
Context: For some time I have thought of writing, but I have hesitated until now, for truly, I feared to expose myself to the criticism of men, because I have not studied like others, who have assimilated both Law and the Holy Scriptures equally and have never changed their idiom since their infancy, but instead were always learning it increasingly, to perfection, while my idiom and language have been translated into a foreign tongue. So it is easy to prove from a sample of my writing, my ability in rhetoric and the extent of my preparation and knowledge, for as it is said, 'wisdom shall be recognized in speech, and in understanding, and in knowledge and in the learning of truth.

Take up home gardening!"
Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)

As quoted in Calculus Gems (1992) by George F. Simmons

1960s, Letter to Ho Chi Minh (1967)

Source: Magids Series, The Merlin Conspiracy (2003), p. 7.
First lines of the novel.