As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind.

Always pull back-and see how silly we must look to God.

So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.

No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

And what does the rain say at night in a small town, what does the rain have to say? Who walks beneath dripping melancholy branches listening to the rain? Who is there in the rain’s million-needled blurring splash, listening to the grave music of the rain at night, September rain, September rain, so dark and soft? Who is there listening to steady level roaring rain all around, brooding and listening and waiting, in the rain-washed, rain-twinkled dark of night?

The fact was I had the vision... I think everyone has... what we lack is the method.

It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.