Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.

as the shadows assume shapes I fight the slow retreat now my once-promise dwindling dwindling now lighting new cigarettes pouring more drinks it has been a beautiful fight still is.

bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it

I wasn’t going anywhere and neither was the rest of the world. We were all just hanging around waiting to die and meanwhile doing little things to fill the space. Some of use weren’t even doing little things. We were vegetables.

That was the trouble with being a writer, that was the main trouble—leisure time, excessive leisure time. You had to wait around for the buildup until you could write and while you were waiting you went crazy, and while you were going crazy you drank and the more you drank the crazier you got.

What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

I am too sick to lay down the sidewalks frighten me the whole damned city frightens me, what I will become what I have become frightens me.