First paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L.A. Public Library.

I have been treated better than I should have been---not by life in general nor by the machinery of things but by women.

as the spirit wanes the form appears

I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores.

I would say that Mickey Mouse has a greater influence on the American public than Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Rabelais, Shostakovitch, Lenin, and/or Van Gogh. Which says 'What?' about the American Public. Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.

Dying should come easy: like a freight train you don't hear when your back is turned.

One more drink and you're dead. This is no way to talk to a suicide head.