Oh, the secret life of man and woman--dreaming how much better we would be than we are if we were somebody else or even ourselves, and feeling that our estate has been unexploited to its fullest.

We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising.

All I want to be is very young always and very irresponsible and to feel that my life is my own-to live and be happy and die in my own way to please myself

She felt the essence of herself pulled finer and smaller like those streams of spun glass that pull and stretch till there remains but a glimmering illusion. Neither falling nor breaking, the stream spins finer. She felt herself very small and ecstatic. Alabama was in love.

We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.

Emptying the ashtrays was very expressive of myself. i just lump everything in a great heap which i have labeled ‘the past,’ and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself, i am ready to continue.