It went from publisher to publisher to publisher. All of them refused it. They gave the same reasons, until a small publisher picked it up. From 1960 to 1963, three years, it didn’t sell 1500 copies. Nobody wanted to read it. It doesn’t matter. I am not here to sell, I’m here to write.

I’m still astonished that somebody would offer me a job and pay me to do what I wanted to do. And to this day, that’s been the astonishment of my life, and delight of my life, and the wonder of my life, and the puzzlement that anybody would be so stupid as to be willing to do that. I hear all these success stories of people, these captains of industry, these forgers of the world, and empire builders and so on. And they talk about all the money they’ve made and become presidents and all that, and I thought, jeez, but look at me. When I was offered a chance to be head of studios I wouldn’t take it. I like to work with the tools of my trade. The tools of my trade is a lot of paper and a pencil, and that’s all it is.

Well, that’s the optimistic reading of it, which you are never able to apply when it happens. You can read it this way when it’s over. Rationally speaking, it’s a period that’s needed, because the danger for every poet, I think, is to write too much. So these are the blessed moments of silence, protecting you from writing too many poems, diluting you and what you have to say in a stream of banal poems. It’s necessary, but still very painful, because I just don’t know what to do if I don’t write poems. I still survive, but it is painful.

I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.

they worked hard. They work hard today. So they passed along a lot of life lessons by working hard.

I have a pretty great life,

So after they left, I had to clean all the bathrooms.…you can’t unsee that kind of stuff. But that was my job and so I did it delightfully.

One setback after another, we shook it off and skated to the next opportunity. Each time, we gain skills and strengthen our character. No setback that comes our way doesn't look like an opportunity these days.

I’m surrounded by 60 people that are doing smart things all the time. They probably don’t realize it but I’m learning constantly from every single one of them.

So I think that what people misunderstand is somehow the best jobs are the ones that bring you happiness all the time. I don’t think that that’s right.