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

...the tale that's told for no other reason but companionship, which is another (and my favorite) definition of literature, the tale that's told for companionship and to teach something religious, of religious reverence, about real life, in this real world which literature should (and here does) reflect.

The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.

John Clellon Holmes... and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost Generation and the subsequent existentialism and I said 'You know John, this is really a beat generation'; and he leapt up and said, 'That's it, that's right!'

I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.

Holding up my purring cat to the moon. I sighed.

It's okay, girl, we'll make it till the sun goes down forever. And until then what you got to lose but the losing? We're fallen angels who didn't believe that nothing means nothing.