At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.

Believe me, if anybody has a job and starts at 9, there's no reason why they can't get up at 4:30 or five and write for a couple of hours, and give their employers their second-best effort of the day - which is what I did.

I was very careful never to take an interesting job. If you have an interesting job, you get interested in it.

If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.