"Van Gogh writing his brother for paints Hemingway testing his shotgun Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine the impossibility of being human Shakespeare a plagiarist Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness the impossibility the impossibility Nietzsche gone totally mad the impossibility of being human all too human this breathing in and out out and in these punks these cowards these champions these mad dogs of glory moving this little bit of light toward us impossibly."

"I've never met another man I'd rather be."

"I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead: men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideals."

"No shortcuts, with me as with life."

"It's 4:30 in the morning, it's always 4:30 in the morning."

"If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence."

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way."

"I was given the job of milking the cows, finally, and it got me up earlier than anybody. But it was kind of nice, pulling at those cows' tits (pg. 172)."

"Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and eight times out of nine I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities."

"The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them."

"It began as a mistake."

"It is clear to see that it is not them but me, who had lost my self-identity. As I hide behind these books I read, while scribbling my poetry, like art could save a wretch like me, with some ideal ideology that no one can hope to achieve. And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me. And everything I have made is trite and cheap and a waste of paint, of tape, of time"

"My head's a carousel of pictures and The spinning never stops."

"For a song I was bought Now I lie when I talk With a careful eye on the cue card. Onto a stage I was pushed, With my sorrow well rehearsed. So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it)."

"He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper. I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover."

"As they take eye for an eye until no one can see, we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history."

"Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt. Do you like to hurt? I do, I do then hurt me."

"So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share. I have been sent to my room. I've been sat in a chair. I held my tongue. I didn't plug my ears. No, I got a good talking to. And now I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child. Well, I'm not a child. No, I am much younger than that. And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave. If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth."

"But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility? It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody! How grateful I was, then, to be part of the mystery, To love, and to be loved! Let’s just hope that is enough."

"Well, I stood dropping a coin into the pit of a well. And I would throw my whole billfold if I thought it would help."

"Honesty" "Accuracy" is just "Popular Opinion."

"Well, ABC, NBC, CBS: Bullshit. They give us fact or fiction? I guess an even split."

"I’ve seen a child, he's caught in the sad trap of gravity. He falls from the lowest branch of the apple tree and lands in the grass and weeps for his dignity. Next time he will not aim so high. Yeah, next time, neither will I."

"Ambition, I’ve found, can lead only to failure. I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you."

"And each new act of war is tonight's entertainment. We're still the pawns in their game."

"The animals laugh from the dark of the wilderness."

"But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living Cause it's the ones with the sorest throats Laura, who have done the most singing."

"If you wanna see the future, Go stare into a cloud."

"Well is it your fear of being buried that makes you so afraid to speak?"

"So you can try and live in darkness but you will never shake the light. It will greet you every morning and make you more aware with its absence at night"

"I sing and drink and sleep on floors And try hard not to be annoyed By all these people worrying about me. So when I'm suffering through some awful drive, You occasionally cross my mind. It's my hidden hope that you are still among them. Well, are you?"

"For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you’re depressed. Will you ever feel ok?"

"I think it is more like a ghost that has been following us both. Something vague that we're not seeing, something more like a feeling."

"There was this book I read and loved, The story of a ship Who sailed around the world and found That nothing else exists Beyond its own two sails And wooden shell And what is held within. All else is sure to pass. We clutch and grasp And debate what's truly permanent."

"The hook is in deep boys, there is no more time. So you can struggle in the water and be too stubborn to die, or you could just let go and be lifted to the sky."

"You could be happy, the minute you try. Why won't you try? Oh won't you try?"

"And the sad act like lepers They stick to the shadows They long to ring bells of warning To tell of their coming So that the pure can shut their doors."

"I drug your ghost across the country, and we plotted out my death. Every city and memory we whispered "Here is where you rest." Well I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.""

"And you speak of a fever, that burns you inside, as you explain to your mother, how you've wanted to die. So she kisses your fingers, and says "My darling, but why? When there is so much more. There is so much more.""

"It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living"

"And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings."

"So you say there are spaces, opening wide? Oh believe me, there's day longer than nights. And you could be happy, if only you'd try. But you don't try. No you don't try."

"If the world could remain within a frame Like a painting on a wall, Then I think we would see the beauty, then We would stand staring in awe At our still lives posed Like a bowl of oranges, Like a story told By the fault lines and the soil."

"In a coma, you don't dream, you just hope that someone sits with you."

"I had a brother once, he drowned in a bathtub, before he'd ever learned how to talk. And I don't know what his name was but my mother does, I heard her say it once, she said, "Padraic, my prince, I have all but died from the sheer weight of my shame: you cried but no-one came.""

"I swear that I'm dying slowly but it's happening, and if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere... just take me there."

"I find that life is easier when it is just a blur With no details to confuse who or what or where I was So when the ending comes the full regret will be obscure"

"I started to sink like the moon tends to do if you stare at it too long Then you blink and it's gone"

"Well morning came, and it dressed the sky in a lovely yellow gown. Shopping malls are opening in that narrow hallway of downtown, filled with people who are shopping for their lovers and their friends, singing "I won't ever be lonely again""

"There's a cat in the window, of the house of my lover. Well she sleeps there alone now, or perhaps with another. Oh I try no to think about that, I try not to think at all!"