I held her wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred, centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted. there was no creature living as foul as I and all my poems were false.

not writing is not good but trying to write when you can't is worse.

If I stop writing I am dead. And that's the only way I'll stop: dead.

Banion wondered which was worse - being sodomized by aliens, or having to sit through two hours of Charles Ives.

Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?

If you are going to try, go all the way or don't even start. If you follow it you will be alive with the gods. It is the only good fight there is.

It will rain all this night and we will sleep transfixed by the dark water as our blood runs through our fragile life.