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.

I write as a function. Without it I would fall ill and die. It's as much a part of one as the liver or intestine, and just about as glamorous.

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.

I am aware that a computer can’t create a poem, but neither can a typewriter.

Love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons.

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

Writers are nothing but beggars with a good line.