I don't see,' I said, 'how people stand being old. Your insides all dry up. When you're young you're so self-reliant. You don't even need much religion.

I dream too much, work too little.

Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But they were a part of me. They were my landscape.

And the danger is that in this move toward new horizons and far directions, that I may lose what I have now, and not find anything except loneliness

When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue. Instead of the world being divided up into Catholics and Protestants or Republicans and Democrats or white men and black men or even men and women, I saw the world divided into people who had slept with somebody and people who hadn’t, and this seemed the only really significant difference between one person and another.

I felt wise and cynical as all hell.

Although, I admit, I desire, Occasionally, some backtalk From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain: A certain minor light may still Lean incandescent Out of kitchen table or chair As if a celestial burning took Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --