“American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-de…” — Edward Albee

Old people whimper, and cry, and belch, and make great hollow rumbling sounds at table; old people wake up in the middle of the night screaming, and find out they haven't even been asleep; and when old people are asleep, they try to wake up, and they can't... not for the longest time.

That's all that counts. People being sorry. Makes you feel better; gives you a sense of dignity, and that's all that's important; a sense of dignity. And it doesn't matter if you don't care or not, either. You got to have a sense of dignity, even if you don't care, 'cause, if you don't have that, civilization's doomed.

My exposure to Beckett and to late O'Neill was probably important right at the time I gave up poetry and the novel.

It's a good idea to have friends both in Heaven and in Hell.