Rather, I think one should write, as nearly as possible, as if he were the first person on earth and was humbly and sincerly putting on paper that which he saw and experienced and loved and lost; what his passing thoughts were and his sorrows and desires.

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.

It all ends in tears anyway.

The bus roared on. I was going home in October. Everybody goes home in October.

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

Pain or love or danger makes you real again.

I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.