my karma was to be born in America where nobody has any fun or believes in anything, especially freedom.

LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; NY gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.

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

We tiptoed around each other like heartbreaking new friends.

We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.

But night would come and with it the mountain moon and the lake would be moon - laned and I'd go out and sit in the grass and meditate facing west, wishing there were a Personal God in all this impersonal matter.

I realized either I was crazy or the world was crazy; and I picked on the world. And of course I was right.