“Some nights I knew that if I slept I would die.”

“I knew it would be you”

“I only want sweet peace and kindliness when I awaken -- but there's always some finger pointing, telling me some terrible deed I committed during the night. It seems I make a lot of mistakes and it seems that I am not allowed any.”

“The war. Here I was a virgin. Could you imagine getting your ass blown off for the sake of history before you even knew what a woman was? Or owned an automobile? What would I be protecting? Somebody else. Somebody else who didn't give a shit about me. Dying in a war never stopped wars from happening.”

“I write as a function. Without it I would fall ill and die. It's as much a part of one as the liver or intestine, and just about as glamorous.”

“I once lay in awhite hospitalfor the dying and the dyingself, where some god pissed a rain ofreason to make things growonly to die, where on my kneesI prayed for LIGHT,I prayed for l*i*g*h*t,and prayingcrawled like a blind slug into thewebwhere threads of wind stuck against my mindand I died of pityfor Man, for myself,on a cross without nails,watching in fear asthe pig belches in his sty, farts,blinks and eats.”

“I went over to see Marina two or three or four times a week. I knew as long as I could see the girl I would be all right…. Soon after, I got a letter from Fay. She and the child were living in a hippie commune in New Mexico. It was a nice place, she said. Marina would be able to breathe there. She enclosed a little drawing the girl had made for me.”