“I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future.”

“When I get down to my last dime I'll just walk over to skid row.""There are some real weirdos down there.""They're everywhere.”

“Women wanted men who made money, women wanted men of mark. How many classy women were living with skid row bums? Well, I didn't want a woman anyhow. Not to live with. How could men live with women? What did it mean? What I wanted was a cave in Colorado with three years' worth of foodstuffs and drink. I'd wipe my ass with sand. Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence.”

“I was getting depressed. My life wasn't going anywhere. I needed something, the flashing of lights, glamour, some damn thing. And here I was, talking to the dead. I finished my first drink. The second was ready.”

“yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and back down into the gut”

“I could understand the moon leaning across a bar on skid rowand asking for a drink, but I couldn't understand anything about myself,I was murdered, I was shit, I was a tentful of dogs,I was poppies mowed down by machine-gun fireI was a hotshot wasp in a webI was less and less and still reaching forsomething, and I thought of her corny remarka night or so ago:You have wounded eyes.”

“I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready.”