Is there no way out of the mind?

Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.

I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with. And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.

What is so real as the cry of a child? A rabbit's cry may be wilder But it has no soul.

As a poet I would say everything should be able to come into a poem but I can't put toothbrushes in a poem. I really can't.

What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam.

You cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time.