“the last cigarettes are smoked, the loaves are sliced,and lest this be taken for wry sorrow,drown the spider in wine.you are much more than simply dead:I am a dish for your ashes,I am a fist for your vanished air.the most terrible thing about lifeis finding it gone.”

“I am not a snob; it is simply that I am not interested with what most people have to say, or what they want to do — mostly with my time.”

“God knows I am not too hippy. Perhaps because I am too much around the hip and I fear fads for, like anybody else, I like something that tends to last.”

“Hey, Hank, I notice all the women around your place lately ... good looking stuff; you're doing all right.""Sam," I say, "that's not true; I am one of God's most lonely men.”

“out of the arms...out of the arms of one loveand into the arms of anotherI have been saved from dying on the crossby a lady who smokes potwrites songs and stories,and is much kinder than the last,much much kinder,and the sex is just as good or better.it isn't pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,it is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn'tworkas all lovefinallydoesn't work...it is much more pleasant to make lovealong the shore in Del Marin room 42, and afterwardssitting up in beddrinking good wine, talking and touchingsmokinglistening to the waves...I have died too many timesbelieving and waiting, waitingin a roomstaring at a cracked ceilingwaiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound...going wild insidewhile she danced with strangers in nightclubs...out of the arms of one loveand into the arms of anotherit's not pleasant to die on the cross,it's much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in the dark.”

“dear J: I feel lucky that I didn’t fuck you the first time we met in Houston, but luckier that I didn’t fuck you the last time we met in San Francisco. this is the answer to your letter even though I don’t know if you’ll ever read it. the words are yours but I’ll get credit for the poem. you see, it could never have worked, the way I am. B.”

“Ihave a face like a washrag. I singlove songs and carry steel.I would rather die than cry. I can'tstand hounds can't live without them.I hang my head against the whiterefrigerator and want to scream likethe last weeping of life forever butI am bigger than the mountains.”