“July 4th fireworks exhale over the Hudson sadly.It is beautiful that they have to disappear.It's like the time you said I love you madly.That was an hour ago. It's been a fervent year.”

“Poems 1959-2009_I turn into the man they photograph.I think I'll ask him for his autograph.He's older than I am and more distinguished.The beauty of the boy has been extinguished.He smiles a lot and then not.Hauteur is the new hot.He tilts his nose up and looks imperious.He wants to make sure he looks serious.He smiles at the photographer but notThe camera. He thinks cold is the look that's hot.You know the poems. It's an experience.The way that Shylock is a Shakespearience.A Jew found frozen on the mountain at the howling summit,Immortally preserved singing to the dying planet from it.”

“Too much is almost enough”

“What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”

“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.”

“I wanted to lie hour after hour on a couch, pouring out the dark, secret places of my heart--do this feeling that over my shoulder sat humanity and wisdom and generosity, a munificent heart--do this until that incredibly lovely day when the great man would say to me, his voice grave and dramatic with discovery: "This is you, Exley. Rise and go back into the world a whole man.”

“Musik und Leben hängen irgendwie zusammen, das heißt, man hört nur die Musik, die irgendwie zum eigenen Leben passt. Wenn sich das Leben aber ändert, wird auch die Musik, die man hören will, eine andere und die Beziehung zu den alten Melodien, die man mal sehr mochte, ändert sich.”