On the train: staring hypnotized at the blackness outside the window, feeling the incomparable rhythmic language of the wheels, clacking out nursery rhymes, summing up moments of the mind like the chant of a broken record: god is dead, god is dead. going, going, going. and the pure bliss of this, the erotic rocking of the coach. France splits open like a ripe fig in the mind; we are raping the land, we are not stopping.

I felt the first man I slept with must be intelligent, so I could respect him.

Every day one has to earn the name of 'writer' over again, with much wrestling.

I keep wanting to crawl back into the womb.

I would say everything should be able to come into a poem, but I can't put toothbrushes into a poem, I really can't!

The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.

Why am I obsessed with the idea I can justify myself by getting manuscripts published? Is it an escape-an excuse for any social failure-so I can say "No, I don't go out for many extracurricular activities, but I spend a lot of time writing."