I feel the need to reaffirm all of it, the whole unhappy territory and all the things loved and unloveable in it, for it is all part of me.

The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstance whether created by others or by one's own human failings. They are the only consistent art in the United States which constantly remind us of our limitations while encouraging us to see how far we can actually go. When understood in their more profound implication, they are a corrective, an attempt to draw a line upon man's own limitless assertion.

All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority.

To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.

There are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.