Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: There sat the 18-pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.

Experience can dull. With most men experience is a series of mistakes; the more experience you have the less you know.

I feel strangely normal.

they say that nothing is wasted: either that or it al is

what matters most is how well you walk through the fire

one can never be sure whether it's good poetry or bad acid

That's your response to everything: drink?" "No, that's my response to nothing.