The people need poetry that will be their own secret_x000D_ To keep them awake forever,_x000D_ And bathe them in the bright-haired wave of its breathing.

Television, above all, is the place where people can see the world they live in, and if the world they live in is a world without the arts, so much the worse for television, and so much the worse for the viewers.

I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

There is a lot of propaganda about opera singers not being able to act. That's not necessarily true and hasn't been true for a very long time. And certainly there were those instances when singers were told they need to fit into a certain size dress. Of course, women. Men? They just make the costume bigger.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don't think they're doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

In France, in Europe, the young artists of any generation always act as grandsons of some great man - Poussin, for example, or Victor Hugo. They can't help it. Even if they don't believe in that, it gets in their system. And so when they come to produce something of their own, the tradition is nearly indestructible.