I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.

We wanted, it seemed, what we already had, a lover and a friend to create with, side by side. To be loyal, yet be free.

Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.

Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn't live long enough to see the time they were ahead of.

I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.

Later he would say that the Church led him to God, and LSD led him to universe. He also said that art led him to the devil, and sex kept him with the devil.

Finally, by the sea, where God is everywhere, I gradually calmed.

We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world.

Writing is not some quiet, closet act.

Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.

I wish I could just project everything on the paper,

What is the soul? What color is it? I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return. I did my best not to fall asleep, to keep it inside of me where it belonged.

To be an artist is to enter into competition with god.

Got to lose control before you take control.

We never had any children," he said ruefully. "Our work was our children.

Paths that cross will cross again.

But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revalation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.

Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.

We learned we wanted too much. We could only give from the perspective of who we were and what we had. Apart, we were able to see with even greater clarity that we didn’t want to be without each other.

Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.

Angel looks down at him and says, “Oh, pretty boy, Can't you show me nothing but surrender?

I hated the soup and felt little for the can.

It seemed as if the whole of the world was slowly being stripped of innocence. Or maybe I was seeing a little too clearly.

I have vague memories, like impressions on glass plates ...

In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.

Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview)

Nothing can be truly replicated. Not a love, not a jewel, not a single line.

He contained, even at an early age, a stirring and the desire to stir.

He took twelve pictures that day. Within a few days he showed me the contact sheet. "This one has the magic," he said. When I look at it now, I never see me. I see us.

How is it that we never completely comprehend our love for someone until they’re gone?

People have the power to redeem the work of fools.

I knew if I lived long enough I would be poet laureate of something.

Robert was concerned with how to make the photograph, and I with how to be the photograph.

Anxious for some permanency, I guess I needed to be reminded how temporal permanency is.

When you hit a wall, just kick it in.

I preferred an artist who transformed his time, not mirrored it." - reference to Andy Warhol

I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cort s.

Please, no matter how we advance in technology please don't abandon the book-there is nothing in our material world more beautiful than a book.

He wasn't certain whether he was a good or bad person. Whether he was altruistic. Whether he was demonic. But he was certain of one thing. He was an artist. And for that he would never apologize.

Holding onto the naive belief that travel will open.

Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.

I knew one day I would stop and he would keep on going, but until then nothing could tear us apart.

It was like being at an Arabian hoedown with a band of psychedelic hillbillies (p. 171).

I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return.

Not all dreams need to be realized.

People say beware, but I don't care. Their words are just rules and regulations to me.

The mind of a child is like a kiss on the forehead — open and disinterested

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.

I reflected on the fact that no matter how good I aspired to be, I was never going to achieve perfection

Just come back, I was thinking. You've been gone long enough. Just come back. I will stop traveling; I will wash your clothes.