Luckily, I remembered something Malcolm Cowley had taught us at Stanford - perhaps the most important lesson a writing class (not a writer, understand, but a class) can ever learn. 'Be gentle with one another's efforts,' he often admonished us. 'Be kind and considerate with your criticism. Always remember that it's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.'

Allen Ginsberg is a tremendous warrior as time goes by. He's a warrior first and a poet second.

I was raised a Christian and was a stone-faced acid head.

The dead's dead ... get 'em in the ground and look to the live ones.

Ocean, Ocean I'll beat you in the end.

There've been a lot more people hurt on astro-turf than grass.

Anti-drug fanatics and cops are the criminals - it's like McCarthyism. They need someone to dislike to distract the public from the really important problems.