“Writing has spoiled the pleasure of reading for me, because I can’t read innocently.” —Manuel Puig
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“California has been the beckoning cloudland to which I often return.”—Wright Morris
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“I do live in the book. If you don’t enter into it, you can’t really translate it.” —Richard Pevear buff.ly/1J80omO

“I only took dope a few times, and it was much too strong for me. I took acid and IT-290 and peyote and marijuana. I can’t say I hated them all.” —Sharon Olds buff.ly/8vBg5N6

“Early on, I sensed that—in every art—the ultimate shared subject is human consciousness itself.” —Allan Gurganus buff.ly/g7W3SDq

“I heard the way these horn players have with breath as an artistic othering of the asmathic conditions imposed on black folk, the asphyxiations imposed on black life.” —Nathaniel Mackey buff.ly/lg0z2j7

“When one wants to be profoundly oneself, which is the case in a poem, one puts oneself on a plane that is at least partly incommunicable to others.”–Yves Bonnefoy
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“The idea of getting bad reviews is not nearly as bad as getting no reviews, frankly.” —Jim Harrison buff.ly/lxdkdMI

“I tell my students, who believe passionately in explaining the work they’re sharing, You know, when you’re dead, you can’t go around explaining this thing—it has to be right there on the page.” —Louise Glück buff.ly/OvqHIUD

“I write in longhand. I am accustomed to that proximity, that feel of writing.” —James Salter buff.ly/vGRwszI

“If they occupy your country, you resist.” —Elias Khoury buff.ly/30QlavW

“There’s no preparation for poetry. Four years of grave digging with a nice volume of poetry or a book of philosophy in one’s pocket would serve as well as any university.” —Charles Simic
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“Poems help me to know what I’m feeling. Out of the depths of my heart will come a quotation completely unbidden. And then I will think, Oh, so that’s what I am feeling today.” —Helen Vendler
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“I write to find out what I think about something.” —Anne Carson
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This week, we’ve unlocked our Art of Poetry interview with Anne Carson, who has just received the Nobel Prize in literature. buff.ly/mR5HpYb

“I’d like to see more novels not written by people who have all the time in the world to write them.” —William F. Buckley Jr.
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“I always wrote in English since I wanted my friends and the girls I was in love with to understand my poems.” —Charles Simic
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“I’ve never known a writer who didn’t feel ill at ease in the world. Have you?” —Andrea Barrett
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“I’ve never liked the term ‘close reading.’ I’d like to know who thought it up.” —Helen Vendler
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“An idea you have might not be original—Aristotle will always have thought of it before you.” —Umberto Eco
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