“See it was like this when we waltz into this place.A couple of papish cats is doing an Aztec two-stepAnd I says Dad let's cutbut then this dame comes up behind me see and says you and me could really existWow I says Only the next day she has bad teeth and really hates poetry.”

“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”

“I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say 'whom I amconstantly shocking”

“Don't patronize the chain bookstores. Every time I see some author scheduled to read and sign his books at a chain bookstore, I feel like telling him he's stabbing the independent bookstores in the back.”

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

“The art has to make it on its own, without explanations, and it’s the same for poetry. If the poem or the painting has to be explained, then it’s a failure in communication.”

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