The greatest certainty in life is death. The greatest uncertainty is the time.

Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering.

The machine yes the machine never wastes anybody's time never watches the foreman never talks back.

Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break that silence with definite intentions of echoes, syllables, wave lengths.

I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.

I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers grappling the Long Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song.

My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself.