"She let herself out by the back door and carefully shut it behind her, and ran through the short cut that led to the …"

"...Swimming? In the Ba'ma grass? Who ever heard of such a thing and a big man at that? (beginning of "Swimming in the…"

"I am not a scrupulous plotter of fiction or poetry – I write intuitively, thinking for a long time about my subject a…"

"(Q: advice for struggling writers?) OS: Keep at it. Writing is a craft like any other and you get better with practic…"

"Somebody, I forget who it was, said that I was like a literary archeologist, which pleased me because that is how I l…"

"OS: There is a certain imperative about what I write and how I write, and I'm going to follow that imperative regardl…"

"I suppose the main thing about me is that I don't feel or see any disjunction between life and land or between living…"

"I also think that one of the things that has shaped my sensibilities as a writer is the intense beauty of the country…"

"I haven't done research for any specific poem, but my writing is not separate from my life; and I have spent my entir…"

"I am very conscious as a writer of removing myself and my personal concerns from what is going on in the text. I try …"