If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did.

I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.

I feel overwhelmingly grateful to them, but I don't know what to do with their invisible gifts.

It's not too bad when the sun's out, but the sun only comes out when it feels like coming out.

Liberate yourself from my vice-like grip!

The color of his pallor, however, was a curiously basic white - unmixed, that is, with the greens and yellows of guilt or abject contrition. It was very like the standard bloodlessness in the face of a small boy who loves animals to distraction, all animals, and who has just seen his favourite, bunny-loving sister's expression as she opened the box containing his birthday present to her - a freshly caught young cobra, with a red ribbon tied in an awkward bow around its neck.