That was in Crescent City, California, up near the Oregon border. I left soon after. But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber's chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber's fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.

Get in, get out. Don't linger. Go on.

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.

Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

You have to have been in love to write poetry.

We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.