My father took me back home, back to Greenwich Village, and he thought by taking me out of the orphanage he'd be out of the World War too. But no way - they got him anyway. He went in the Navy and then I lived on the streets.

If you believe you're a poet, then you're saved.

They, that unnamed they, they've knocked me down but I got up. I always get up -- and I swear when I went down quite often I took the fall; nothing moves a mountain but itself. They, I've long ago named them me.

I moved up over Lower East Side and I was adopted by eight foster parents; I lived all over New York City with these parents, man, till I was about ten years old.

The lucky thing was that I was Italian; when the other Italians saw me fight back, they came to my defence.

It is a great feeling to know that from a window I can go to books to cans of beer to past loves. And from these gather enough dream to sneak out a back door.

Ah, if I were dictator I'd have poets throwing bombs!