"Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how. We have all heard novelists testify to the fact that, beginning a new book, they are utterly baffled as to how to proceed, what should be written and how it might be written, even though they've done a dozen." — Donald Barthelme, Not Knowing

"Maybe books devoted to exalted standards of prose will always be reproached for not telling readers enough." Where The Stress Falls, Susan Sontag.

"Repetition in word and phrase and in idea is the very essence of poetry..." — Theodore Roethke