See it was like this when we waltz into this place. A couple of papish cats is doing an Aztec two-step And I says Dad let's cut but then this dame comes up behind me see and says you and me could really exist Wow I says Only the next day she has bad teeth and really hates poetry.

A lot of manuscripts that come in, you wonder by what outrageous fantasy the author believes that this should be pressed into print.

We'd like to just write nothing but lyric poetry. The trouble is, the individual is going along intent on his own personal gratifications and love affairs and financial affairs and everything else. But loping alongside him is this fascist lout who keeps trying to take over. And if you keep ignoring him, he gets bigger and bigger, so every once in a while the free individual has to turn away from his private pursuits and give this fascist lout a few clouts, and beat him down to size.

This is all very nice, because the ideas that Jack and the Beat generation stood for are needed today more than ever. But I'm not so interested in nostalgia. I'm interested in the future.

To say one is revolutionary is a little like saying one is a Zen Buddhist - if you say you are, you probably aren't.

I once started out to walk around the world but ended up in Brooklyn, that Bridge was too much for me.

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money.