“If you're too open-minded; your brains will fall out.”

“[in the true mad north] of introspection,where 'falcons of the inner eye'dive and die, glimpsing in their dying fall, all life's memory of existence.”

“We have seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.”

“I once started outto walk around the worldbut ended up in Brooklyn,that Bridge was too much for me.”

“Let us arise and go nowto the Isle of Manisfreeand live the true blue simple lifeof wisdom and wondermentwhere all things growstraight upaslant and singingin the yellow sunpoppies out of cowpodsthinking angels out of turds.I must arise and go nowto the Isle of Manisfreeway up behind the broken wordsand woods of Arcady.”

“It was a face which darkness could kill in an instant a face as easily hurt by laughter or light 'We think differently at night' she told me oncelying back languidly And she would quote Cocteau'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say 'whom I am constantly shocking' Then she would smile and look away light a cigarette for me sigh and riseand stretch her sweet anatomy let fall a stocking”

“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,and whose shepherds mislead them.Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.Pity the nation that raises not its voice,except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as heroand aims to rule the world with force and by torture.Pity the nation that knows no other language but its ownand no other culture but its own.Pity the nation whose breath is moneyand sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erodeand their freedoms to be washed away.My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”