Wishin' was dyin' but I gotta make it all this way to that bed on these feet.

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.

Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.

The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business.

something has been said for sobriety but very little.

Two daiquiris withdrew into a corner of a gorgeous room and one told the other a lie.

We are using our own skins for wallpaper and we cannot win.