I am this fiery snail crawling home.

I am for the small man who has not forgotten, for the man who loves his beer and his women and his sunlight

Some people have written that my writing has helped them go on. It has helped me too. The writing, the roses, the 9 cats.

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.

I have two rules. One is, never trust a man who smokes a pipe. The other is, never trust a man with shiny shoes.

I would say that Mickey Mouse has a greater influence on the American public than Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Rabelais, Shostakovitch, Lenin, and/or Van Gogh. Which says 'What?' about the American Public. Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.

A dry period for me means perhaps going two or three nights without writing. I probably have dry periods but I'm not aware of them and I go on writing, only the writing probably isn't much good.