Was I the only person who was distracted by this future without a chance?

Banion wondered which was worse - being sodomized by aliens, or having to sit through two hours of Charles Ives.

Bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well.

i am with the roots of flowers entwined, entombed sending up my passionate blossoms as a flight of rockets and argument; wine churls my throat, above me feet walk upon my brain, monkies fall from the sky clutching photographs of the planets, but i seek only music and the leisure of my pain

That's what friendship means: sharing the prejudice of experience.

I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals.

unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it