you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment.

Lighting new cigarettes, pouring more drinks. It has been a beautiful fight. Still is.

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.

What were you going to do tonight?" "I was going to listen to the songs of Rachmaninoff." "Who's that?" "A dead Russian.

since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light

It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun

Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are.