Somebody had tipped the American continent like a pinball machine and all the goofballs had come rolling to LA in the southwest corner. I cried for all of us. There was no end to the American sadness and the American madness. Someday we'll all start laughing and roll on the ground when we realize how funny it's been.

Because I cannot write my native language and have no native home anymore, and am amazed by that horrible homelessness of all French-Canadian s abroad in America.

I was amazed by the fact that I was not the only writer living, not the only young man "with a locomotive in his chest, and that's a fact," not the only youth with a million hungers and not one of them appeasable, not the only one who is lonely among multitudes, and does not know why.

...most of the time we were alone and mixing up our souls ever more and ever more till it would be terribly hard to say good-by.

Don't tell them too much about your soul. They're waiting for just that.

all I wanted to do was sneak out into the night and disappear somewhere, and go and find out what everybody was doing all over the country.

...and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.