there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad. then I put him back, but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep, do you?

agony sometimes changes form but it never ceases for anybody.

I only want sweet peace and kindliness when I awaken -- but there's always some finger pointing, telling me some terrible deed I committed during the night. It seems I make a lot of mistakes and it seems that I am not allowed any.

Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.

in the cupboard sits my bottle like a dwarf waiting to scratch out my prayers. I drink and cough like some idiot at a symphony, sunlight and maddened birds are everywhere, the phone rings gamboling its sound against the odds of the crooked sea; I drink deeply and evenly now, I drink to paradise and death and the lie of love.

It was only the matter of a new voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one's self, like a fingernail.

the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.