have you ever seen a genius out there looking for a job? it's the saddest thing in the world. no one will hire him. there is only one place where he is always welcome- at the bottom.

The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph.

New York has a trip-hammer vitality which drives you insane with restlessness if you have no inner stabilizer.

I think someday you're going to be a great writer," he said. "But" he added maliciously, "first you'll have to suffer a bit. I mean really suffer, because you don't know what the word means yet. You only think you've suffered. You've got to fall in love first.

We are dancing in the hollow of nothingness. We are one flesh, but separated like stars.

Until he [man] has become fully human, until he learns to conduct himself as a member of the earth, he will continue to create gods who will destroy him. The tragedy of Greece lies not in the destruction of a great culture but in the abortion of a great vision.

Who wants to be a hundred? What's the point of it? A short life and a merry one is far better than a long one sustained by fear, caution, and perpetual medical surveillance.