I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any - after all, most people are unhappy, don't you think?

The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously.

I am always trying to 'preserve' things by getting other people to read what I have written, and feel what I felt.

Sexual intercourse began in 1963 ... / Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ and the Beatles first LP

Depression is to me as daffodils were to Wordsworth.

I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by children if you're not.

Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word--the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.