The whole mad swirl of everything that was to come began then.

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.

don't stop to think of the words when you do stop, just stop to think of the picture better-and let your mind off yourself in this work.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.

All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land.

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.

And I said, 'That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once and for all.