Knowledge without follow-through is worse than no knowledge.

it is good to be sitting some place in public at 2:30 in the afternoon without getting the flesh ripped from your bones.

The role of the poet is almost nothing...drearily nothing. And when he steps outside of his boots and tries to get tough as our dear Ezra [Pound] did, he will get his pink little ass slapped.

But my whole life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.

Her violence frightened me. She always claimed that I was the jealous one, and I was often jealous, but when I saw things working against me I simply became disgusted and withdrew. Lydia was different. She reacted. She was the Head Cheerleader at the Game of Violence.

He had long nostril hairs, powerfully intimidating, like an unscheduled nightmare.

When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.