“Be patient, work hard and consistently, have faith in your writing, and don't be afraid to listen to constructive criticism.”

“I've always loved the poetry in 'Pale Fire.' I think it's wonderful.”

“Poetry is really about your mental state or intellectual, and where you are, and you're trying to evoke that, explain it to yourself, whatever, you're trying to dig into it, analyse yourself.”

“I've always used poetry to explain myself to myself. These things just sat in my psyche and then came out.”

“I love poetry; it's my primary literary interest, and I suppose the kind of reading you do when you are reading poems - close reading - can carry over into how you read other things.”

“Poetry is not mainstream, but then neither is serious fiction, really. But I don't think there's a lot to worry about in this particular 'problem'. Why does art have to be mainstream to be signific...”

“Not everyone may not think the way you do.”

“I think you're wrong.""Think what you like.”

“To think, to think, even with a split second left - to think was the only hope.”

“Of course it would be hard. But I remembered what my nurseryman grandfather used to say when I didnt want to go to school: half the work in the world was done by people who didnt feel so good today.”

“I've never minded it," he went on. "Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not truly be lost if one knew one's own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.”

“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison”

“Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and finds the readiest response.”