This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key, perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse.

No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.

The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestion- ingly; they underwrite it with their lives.

We kill because were afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we’d have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong.

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.

Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge.

We have two American flags always; one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it it means danger, revolution, anarchy.

The poem is the dream made flesh, in a two-fold sense: as work of art, and as life, which is a work of art.

In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.

Sin, guilt, neurosis—they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.