Writing in the incurable itch that possesses many.

I began to feel that itch that every writer longs for: the itch to start getting words down, the itch to tell a story.

You want poetry, first you have to muck in with humanity, you have to fight with paper and pencil for weeks and weeks until your heart bleeds: verses aren't channelled into your head by angels or muses or sprites of nature.

What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?

Itch to read, scratch to understand.

One learns to itch where one can scratch.

One must scratch that part of the body or mind that itches.

I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears – <p align="center">"Write! Write"</p>I wondered what could be the matter with me, and I began to walk backwards and forwards in a great fit of excitement, saying to myself– "I know nothing about poetry."

I want to write poetry, I'm bored, disgusted by my habits If I stop thinking and put my hands down perhaps I will have much to say I'm scurrying to the attic like a solitary bug Before you become old and ugly, I must kiss you on the nose

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. Your life story would not make a good book. Do not even try.

The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away.

The itch to be original is an affectation caused by a lack of talent.

Where talent is lacking, anger writes poetry.

Throughout my career I've lived in constant fear that I wouldn’t be good enough, that I'd have nothing to say, that I’d be laughed at, humiliated—and I’m old enough to know that fear will follow me to the very last word I'll ever write. As for now, I feel the first itch of the novel I’m supposed to write—the grain of sand that irritates the soft tissues of the oyster. The beginning of the world as I don’t quite know it. But I trust I’ll begin to know it soon.