“I learned from her that the people who said you only live once were not readers. As often as you open a book, you come to new places and live new lives.”

“They were learning that New York had another life, too — subterranean, like almost everything that was human in the city — a life of writers meeting in restaurants at lunchtime or in coffee houses after business hours to talk of work just started or magazines unpublished, and even to lay modest plans for the future. Modestly they were beginning to write poems worth the trouble of reading to their friends over coffee cups. Modestly they were rebelling once more.”

“The tulip next appeared, all over gay, But wanton, full of pride, and full of play; The world can't show a dye but here has place; Nay, by new mixtures, she can change her face; Purple and gold are both beneath her care- The richest needlework she loves to wear; Her only study is to please the eye, And to outshine the rest in finery”

“My new favorite quote is, "Feed kids Cokes and french fries and you get an obesity crisis. Feed them mental junk food and you get non-readers and poor thinkers.”

“The late 1920s were an age of islands, real and metaphorical. They were an age when Americans by thousands and tens of thousands were scheming to take the next boat for the South Seas or the West Indies, or better still for Paris, from which they could scatter to Majorca, Corsica, Capri or the isles of Greece. Paris itself was a modern city that seemed islanded in the past, and there were island countries, like Mexico, where Americans could feel that they had escaped from everything that oppressed them in a business civilization. Or without leaving home they could build themselves private islands of art or philosophy; or else - and this was a frequent solution - they could create social islands in the shadow of the skyscrapers, groups of close friends among whom they could live as unconstrainedly as in a Polynesian valley, live without moral scruples or modern conveniences, live in the pure moment, live gaily on gin and love and two lamb chops broiled over a coal fire in the grate. That was part of the Greenwich Village idea, and soon it was being copied in Boston, San Francisco, everywhere.”

“You’re with a girl. She’s brown-haired and side-swept. I imagine that she’s the kind of girl who can easily shop for jean shorts, and speaks kindly more often than not. She seems like the kind of girl who hates New York City because it wreaks havoc on her shoes (really she just thinks it’s a big and scary place), but once had the time of her life in Spain on a backpacking trip when she was 23. Her gaze is focused on the embracing couple as near strangers capable of judgement. She stands bolted next to you like you’re her anchor in the social storm.You two seem finely matched… but what do I know? (Nothing at all.)I accidentally saw a picture of you and it reminded me that I was dating a man rightfully shaking his fist at God, while trying to hold my hand with the other. I was reminded of how fiercely we tried to hold our relationship together, and how devastated and relieved we were in its destruction. There’s water under that bridge.I accidentally saw a picture of you. No big deal. I wrote about it.”

“I miss the thoughts of you now...For in my head they over ran.But now, on unpretentious grounds...There's a grave with unearthed sand.You brought the color to my world,When I was content living in gray.But, now those colors are too bright,They tarnish all that they portray.I miss the thought of you, more than you...Because my thoughts left you unblemished.And I held on to them; with tenacious grip...But, like your honor, they diminished.For while my heart was sentient...You drug my name through the mire...And now when thoughts of you arise...They're just cinder in the fire.I miss the thoughts of you now...For in my head, you were amended...But, now in your place, Is a nameless face...Of a man who has descended.”