the way to create art is to burn and destroy ordinary concepts and to substitute them with new truths that run down from the top of the head and out of the heart

If you're going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.

The crazy ones only laugh when there is no reason to laugh.

Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness. . . .

The blankets had fallen off and I stared down at her white back, the shoulder blades sticking out as if they wanted to grow into wings, poke through that skin. Little blades. She was helpless.

Those faces you see every day on the streets were not created entirely without hope: be kind to them: like you they have not escaped.

If there are junk yards in hell, love is the dog that guards the gates.