I Am A Phoenix Who Runs After

With A Novelist, Like A Surgeon, You Have To Get A Feeling That You've Fallen Into Good Hands - Someone From Whom You Can Accept The Anesthetic With Confidence.

I Am An American, Chicago Born – Chicago, That Somber City – And Go At Things As I Have Taught Myself, Free-style, And Will Make The Record In My Own Way: First To Knock, First Admitted; Sometimes An Innocent Knock, Sometimes A Not So Innocent. But A Man's Character Is His Fate, Says Heraclitus, And In The End There Isn't Any Way To Disguise The Nature Of The Knocks By Acoustical Work On The Door Or Gloving The Knuckles.

I Want To Tell You, Don't Marry Suffering. Some People Do. They Get Married To It, And Sleep And Eat Together, Just As Husband And Wife. If They Go With Joy They Think It's Adultery.

Towards The End Of Your Life You Have Something Like A Pain Schedule To Fill Out - A Long Schedule Like A Federal Document, Only It's Your Pain Schedule. Endless Categories. First, Physical Causes - Like Arthritis, Gallstones, Menstrual Cramps. New Category, Injured Vanity, Betrayal, Swindle, Injustice. But The Hardest Items Of All Have To Do With Love. The Question Then Is: So Why Does Everybody Persist? If Love Cuts Them Up So Much.

In An Age Of Madness, To Expect To Be Untouched By Madness Is A Form Of Madness. But The Pursuit Of Sanity Can Be A Form Of Madness, Too