I think that everyone who took part has always been grateful for it.

Well, with the French language, which I understood and spoke, however imperfectly, and read in great quantities, at certain times, the matter I suppose was slightly different from either Latin or Greek.

I think it was lucky that during most of the work on the Odyssey I lived on Homer's sea in houses that were, in one case, shaken by the impact of the Mediterranean winter storms on the rocks below.

In a way you can feel that the poet actually is looking over your shoulder, and you say to yourself, now, how would this go for him? Would this do or not?

Of course the other and more serious way in which it all happens is that one finds in poems and language some quality one appropriates for oneself and wishes to reproduce.

I think there are perhaps two ways in which one can begin.

Well, maybe so, although I don't think I am particularly gifted in languages. In fact, oddly enough, it may have something to do with my being slow at languages.

Yes, and there were changes of light on landscapes and changes of direction of the wind and the force of the wind and weather. That whole scene is too important in Homer to neglect.

The question is how to bring a work of imagination out of one language that was just as taken-for-granted by the persons who used it as our language is by ourselves. Nothing strange about it.

Is encouragement what the poet needs? Open question. Maybe he needs discouragement. In fact, quite a few of them need more discouragement, the most discouragement possible.

In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary.

One should indeed read Pope with his notes available, in the Twickenham edition possibly, to see what a vast amount he did understand about Homer.

The heart of the matter seems to me to be the direct interaction between one's making a poem in English and a poem in the language that one understands and values. I don't see how you can do it otherwise.

I think that everyone who took part has always been grateful for it.

Homer's whole language, the language in which he lived, the language that he breathed, because he never saw it, or certainly those who formed his tradition never saw it, in characters on the pages. It was all on the tongue and in the ear.

Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.

That helped me to keep in touch with myself and to keep in touch with this really quite extraordinary language and literature into which I had pushed a little way.

The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.

There must of course be a relationship between translating and making poems of your own, but what it is I just don't know.

Words began to appear in English and to make some kind of equivalent. For what satisfaction it is hard to say, except that something seems unusually piercing, living, handsome, in another language, and since English is yours, you wish it to be there too.

Yes, living voices in a living language, so it seemed to us.

I would then go on to say that Homer, as we now know, was working in what they call an oral tradition.

What the translator - myself in particular - does is not comparable to what the Homeric performer was doing.

Now, the language that had grown up and formed itself on those principles is what one is dealing with, and the problem is to bring a work of art in that medium into another medium formed on different principles and heard and understood in a different way.

Is encouragement what the poet needs Open question. Maybe he needs discouragement. In fact quite a few of them need more discouragement the most discouragement possible.

We don't really need reviewers, just first-night reporters who will tell us faithfully whether or not the audience liked the show.

There are a lot of places that I know extremely well. Like, if I were to visit Sydney, Australia, I'd feel very comfortable there. I'm very comfortable in many, many cities.

I have no problem with being underdressed.

I would say that many of the characters in my stories do not live in true poverty - they are not out on the street; they are not wondering if there will be anything to eat in the next week. They are people who are at the lower echelons of the economic strata.

The good life, as it is popularly conceived, typically involves acquiring mastery in one's work, thus gaining for oneself better terms - or means to rewards, whether material, like wealth, or nonmaterial - an experience we may call 'prospering.'

The beginning of Book Three is the last one that I drew, where V's conducting the 1812 overture.

I'm committed to universal health coverage and education.

I discovered I was a monotheist... That rules out polytheism. I have also had a problem with authority, which rules out any religion with a priesthood or leader who claims to be God's representative on Earth.

I don't remember ever not singing. My mother loved music, and she taught me songs, country music, spirituals. I would sing for people and pass the hat when I was 4.

Why buy a book when you can join a library.

Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It's no coincidence we call them "deadlines".

I had a Super Grover doll growing up. Super Grover was very clumsy, he wasn't very good-looking. But in his own way he'd always save the day.

It was all balance. But then she already knew that from surfing.

Without Ace of Base, I kind of feel Backstreet Boys would have never found their sound.

Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.

I used to swallow people's energies, and then I learned, as I got older, that I'm too sensitive, and I had to stop doing that. Now I don't take as much in.

Dying is only one thing to be sad over... Living unhappily is something else.

Good debt growth is when you borrow money, and it goes into the real economy. You do capital spending. You build businesses.

When I was flying to Rome, we flew over London; I felt like bursting into tears. It's part of me, so I can't leave London behind for good.

New Jersey shaped who and what I am. Growing up in Jersey gave you all the advantages of New York, but you were in its shadow. Anyone who's come from here will tell you that same story.

People have a moral standard about what they will do and will not do. At the end of the day someone who cheats has a lower moral standard than someone who does not. And they will cheat in other areas of life as well.

I love Jennifer Aniston. I'm a bit obsessed with her. I also love Kristen Wiig, and obviously, 'Bridesmaids' is one of the funniest movies ever. I do have some of her 'SNL' skits that I've saved on my computer and stuff.

My love of maple syrup. I've been known to knock back a can over a couple days: A swig here, a swig there, and next thing you know it's gone. It's a habit I have to stave off. I don't want to lose all my teeth.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.