The courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over was enormous.

We are Born like this Into this Into these carefully mad wars Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness Into bars where people no longer speak to each other Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings Born into this Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.

I read my books at night, like that, under the quilt with the overheated reading lamp. Reading all those good lines while suffocating. It was magic.

How are his poems?" "He's not as good as he thinks he is, but then most of us feel that way.

I would certainly end up forever crying the blues into a coffee cup in a park for old men playing chess or silly games of some sort.

and even the trees we walked under seemed less than trees and more like everything else.