Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body's breath, and the strings' wails and moans are echoes of the body's music. It is the body's vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations.

To change skins, evolve into new cycles, I feel one has to learn to discard

At first I protested and rebelled against poetry. I was about to deny my poetic worlds. I was doing violence to my illusions with analysis, science, and learning Henry’s language, entering Henry’s world. I wanted to destroy by violence and animalism my tenuous fantasies and illusions and my hypersensitivity. A kind of suicide. The ignominy awakened me. Then June came and answered the cravings of my imagination and saved me. Or perhaps she killed me, for now I am started on a course of madness.

Keeping a Diary all my life helped me to discover some basic elements essential to the vitality of writing.

The fiery moments of passionate experience are the moments of wholeness and totality of the personality.

The ivory tower of the artist may be the only stronghold left for human values, cultural treasures, man’s cult of beauty.

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.