So I had a choice between going to a jail or going to a bughouse like a nice young middle-class student. So I chose to go to a very polite mental hospital. When I left eight months later, they said, 'You were never psychotic. You were just an average neurotic.'

I like the image of The Old Man and the Sea, of striving and succeeding but finding that the success was ghost success. In other words, in the long run, after a certain age, the motives for success, pride or oppressing people or getting power.

Everybody's serious but me.

Our heads are round so thought can change direction

Things are symbols of themselves.

Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.

I saw the best minds of my generation who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade.