I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being... Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.

the grace is being able to like rock music, symphony music, jazz … anything that contains the original energy of joy.

Death meant little to me. It was the last joke in a series of bad jokes.

The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life to a function that doesn't interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative.

my greatest problem was stamps, envelopes, paper and wine, with the world on the edge of World War II.

I walked around the block twice, passed 200 people and failed to see a human being.

Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.