“Of course I had. That's how I do it.”

“I had no idea how free we were. That's how free I was.”

“I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.”

“Writing teachers invariably tell students, write about what you know. That's, of course, what you have to do, but on the other hand, how do you know what you know until you've written it? Writing is knowing... I've had very little experience in my life. In fact, I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.”

“Now that you've had other men to use as a basis for comparison,how do I rate?" he teased."That's an adolescent question," Lauren retorted scornfully.”

“I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"]”