Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it and every time you read it depending on your conditions you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel once you have read it you have grasped it.

I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

Narrative art the novel from Murasaki to Proust has produced great works of poetry.

As an actor there is room for a certain amount of creativity but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina skill or ability to write a novel but I'd love to write short stories and poetry because those are my two passions.

Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel.

The novel is born of disillusionment the poem of despair.

Reading a novel in which all characters illustrate patience hard work chastity and delayed gratification could be a pretty dull experience.

To make a love story you need a couple of young people but to reflect on the nature of love you're better off with old ones. That is a fact of life and literature - and of the novel ever since it fell in love with love in the 18th century.

I've never written a movie I'm not in the movie business. I go out to L.A. and I'm like everyone else wandering around in a daze hoping I see movie stars. I write the novels that the movies are based on and that feels like enough of a job for me.

Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that.