If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean, you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get off the page and everything. The ones you're talking about don't leave a single, solitary thing beautiful. All that maybe the slightly better ones do is sort of get inside your head and leave something there, but just because they do, just because they know how to leave something, it doesn't have to be a poem for heaven's sake. It may just be some kind of terribly fascinating, syntaxy droppings--excuse the expression. Like Manlius and Esposito and all those poor men.

I don't even like old cars. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.

This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat.

Give me a story that just makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out, and for no other reason.

Nobody who's really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies

I privately say to you, old friend... please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parentheses: (((()))).

If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not as good any more.