Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and ...

There's hope for everyone. That's what makes the world go round.

All I wanted to do was write - at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn't need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.

My notion of a wife at 40 is that a man should be able to change her, like a bank note, for two 20s.

If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.