As a poet, one lives a bit on air. I always like someone who can teach me something practical.

I may never be happy, but tonight I am content. At times like this I'd call myself a fool to ask for more.

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.

And you grit your teeth, despising yourself for your tremulous sensitivity, and wondering how human beings can suffer their individualities to be mercilessly crushed under a machinelike dictatorship, be it of industry, state or organization, all their lives long.

I want so obviously, so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love.

God, it was good to let go, let the tight mask fall off, and the bewildered, chaotic fragments pour out. It was the purge, the catharsis.

Doreen had intuition. Everything she said was like a secret voice speaking straight out of my own bones.