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

A skeptic, I would ask for consistency first of all.

I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.

A terrible depression yesterday. Visions of my life petering out into a kind of soft-brained stupor from lack of use.

I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted to lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free.

So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.