I'd swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet.

... even the most sublimely accomplished non-stop talker can't consistently please.

Against my better judgment I feel certain that somewhere very near here—the first house down the road, maybe—there's a good poet dying, but also somewhere very near here somebody's having a hilarious pint of pus taken from her lovely young body, and I can't be running back and forth forever between grief and high delight.

How do you know you're going to do something, untill you do it?

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people…Certain heads, certain colours and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me.

I ignored the flashes of lightning all around me. They either had your number on them or they didn't.

Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.