“That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.”

“You just go on your nerve.”

“And don't worry about your lineagepoetic or natural.”

“Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara.O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac”

“I take thisfor myself, and you take up the thread of my life between your teeth,tin thread and tarnished with abuse,you shall still hearas long as the beast in me maintainsits taciturn power to close my lidsin tears, and my loins move yetin the ennobling pursuit of all the worldsyou have left me alone in, and would bethe dolorous distraction from,while you summon your army of anguisheswhich is a million hooting blood vesselson the eyes and in the earsat that instant before death.”

“My HeartI'm not going to cry all the timenor shall I laugh all the time,I don't prefer one "strain" to another.I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,not just a sleeper, but also the big,overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says "That's not like Frank!," all to the good! I don't wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,often. I want my feet to be bare,I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--you can't plan on the heart, butthe better part of it, my poetry, is open.”

“There is a geography which holdsits hands just so far from the breastand pushes you away, crying so.”