Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation- the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the 'impossible,' come true.

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.

My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and po…

I hate the place like poison with a sincere hatred.

The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing.

In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond wit…

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.