As we go on with our lives we tend to forget that the jails and the hospitals and the madhouses and the graveyards are packed.

the psyche has been burned and left us senseless, the world has been darker than lights-out in a closet full of hungry bats, and the whiskey and wine entered our veins when blood was too weak to carry on

Even the stove and the refrigerator looked human, I mean good human - they seemed to have arms and voices and they said, hang around, kid, it's good here, it can be very good here.

there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone. sitting up in my bed the lights out, hearing the outside sounds, lifting my cheap bottle of wine, letting the warmth of the grape enter me as I heard the rats moving about the room, I preferred them to humans. being lost, being crazy maybe is not so bad if you can be that way undisturbed. New Orleans gave me that. nobody ever called my name.

and the color in my eyes has gone back into the sea.

People were usually much better in their letters than in reality. They were much like poets in this way.

a good book can make an almost impossible existence, liveable ( from 'the luck of the word' )