“Fate would never permit happiness to a man of such talent-a content poet is a mediocre one, a happy poet is insufferable.”

“I was always alone, Doc, solitary whether I wished to be or not, ever since I could remember I wished to be lost in another, thought that somehow I could disappear into that heart of yours, take wa...”

“By remaining constrained in one's environment or country or family, one has little chance of being other than the original prescription. By leaving, one gains a perspective, a distance of both spac...”

“I wonder whether there is such a thing as a sense of individuality. Is it all a facade, covering a deep need to belong? Are we simply pack animals desperately trying to pretend we are not?”

“How can I expect readers to know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the ...”

“Passion was the antithesis of morality.”

“In a universe where all life is in movement, where ever fact seen in perspective is totally engaging, we impose stillness on lively young bodies, distort reality to dullness, make action drudgery. ...”

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. ”

“When you're a kid all you know is that your dad puts on his suit or overalls and vanishes from your life until nightfall. Sometimes my pops came back exhausted and scarlet-eyed, as if he'd been eng...”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”