I arrived in San Francisco in January 1951. After the Second World War, the population was so uprooted. Soldiers came back home for brief periods and took off again. So the population was very fluid, and suddenly it was as if the continent tilted west. The whole population slid west. It took 10 years for America to coalesce into a new culture. And the new culture happened in San Francisco, not New York.

I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say 'whom I am constantly shocking

If you would be a poet, write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance for bullshit.

I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy

My country tears of thee.

The future of publishing lies with the small and medium-sized presses, because the big publishers in New York are all part of huge conglomerates.

We were just a one-room bookstore; we didn't have any money for lawyers.