Part of the oncoming demise (of New York during its terrible fiscal crisis) is that none of us can simply believe it. We were always the best and the strongest of cities, and our people were vital to the teeth. Knock them down eight times and they would get up with that look in the eye which suggests the fight has barely begun.

The Irish are the only men who know how to cry for the dirty polluted blood of all the world.

Great hope has no real footing unless one is willing to face into the doom that may also be on the way. p.207

I become an actor, a quick-change artist, as if I can trap the Prince of Truth in the act of switching a style.

I had a quick grasp of the secret to sanity, it had become the ability to hold the maximum of impossible combinations in one's mind.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

Love is simple to understand if you haven't got a mind soft and full of holes. It's a crutch, that's all, and there isn't any one of us that doesn't need a crutch.