“I think I was about twenty-five when I first said - more or less to myself - that I was quite a good second-rate poet. I repeated it aloud in a Guardian interview in 1976, and some people thought I was a coy old thing.”

“3:12 pm Secretly, I admit, I find many of my classmates annoying. I've often thought to myself, 'Good grief, these people are five-year-olds. Why must I spend my days among them?' But have I ever said such things aloud? No. I have been nothing but generous to them, and kept these thoughts to myself. And how have they repaid me? Have they been grateful or kind? Ho NO!”

“I know some first-class Negroes. I also know some second-rate white people.”

“I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.”

“I want to know about life! I want some real answers...""Five.""Five?!""I thought that was a pretty good answer!”

“I don't believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously."[Writer’s Digest Interview (Robert Jacobs, Writer’s Digest, February 1976)]”