The Effect Of Prizes On One's Career

All One Wants To Do Is Make A Small, Finished, Polished, Burnished, Beautiful Object . . . I Mean, That's All One Wants To Do. One Has Nothing To Say About The World, Or Society, Or Morals Or Politics Or Anything Else. One Just Wants To Get The Damn Thing Done, You Know? Kafka Had It Right When He Said That The Artist Is The Man Who Has Nothing To Say. It's True. You Get The Thing Done, But You Don't Actually Have Anything To Communicate, Apart From The Object Itself.

In My Books You Have To Concentrate, But I Work Hard To Make It That, When You Do, The Rewards Are Quite High.

Poetry Is That Magic Which Consists In Awakening Sensations With The Help Of A Combination Of Sounds ... That Sorcery By Which Ideas Are Necessarily Communicated To Us, In A Definite Way, By Words Which Nevertheless Do Not Express Them.

I Shall Strip Away Layer After Layer Of Grime -- The Toffee-colored Varnish And Caked Soot Left By A Lifetime Of Dissembling -- Until I Come To The Very Thing Itself And Know It For What It Is. My Soul. My Self.

What Is Money, After All? Almost Nothing, When One Has A Sufficiency Of It.