Allen was “queer in those days, experimenting with himself to the hilt, and Neal saw that, and a former boyhood hustler himself in the Denver night, and wanting dearly to learn how to write poetry like Allen, the first thing you know he was attacking Allen with a great amorous soul such as only a conman can have.
The world really does not matter, but God has made it so, and so it matters in God, and He Hath Aims for it, which we cannot know without the understanding of obedience. There is nothing to do but give praise. This is my ethic of “art” and why so.
Ich mag dich, aber nicht deine idiotischen Freunde.
Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you’d think the man wouldn’t have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea.
God was gone; it was the silence of his departure. It was a rainy night. It was the myth of the rainy night. Dean was popeyed with awe. This madness would lead nowhere. I didn’t know what was happening to me, and I suddenly realized it was only the tea that we were smoking;.
Senevabitch Jackcrack, vugup huh?
Like as the birds that gather in the trees of afternoon,′ wrote Ashvhaghosha almost two thousand years ago, ’then at nightfall vanish all away, so are the separations of the world.
I’m glad I know you Dave” – “Me too Jack” – “Why? ” “Maybe I wanted to stand on my head in the snow to prove it but I do, am glad, will be glad, after all that’s right there’s nothing else for us to do but solve these damn problems and I’ve got one right here in my pants for Romana” “But that’s so sick and tired to call life a problem that can be solved” – “Yes but I’m just repeating what I read in the dead pigeon textbooks” – “But Dave I love you” – “Okay I’ll be right over.
One night my old man left the day’s receipts settin on top of the safe, plumb forgot. What happened – a thief came in the night, acetylene torch and all, broke open the safe, riffled up the papers, kicked over a few chairs, and left. And that thousand dollars was settin right there on top of the safe, what do you know about that?
Where the stars nodded on trees.
I had come to France to do nothing but walk and eat.
In fact it didn’t make a goddamn much of a difference to him. “I’m neutral,” said he, laughing happily with a kind of an eager slaking leer, and Japhy yelled: “Neutral is what Buddhism is!
On rails we leaned and looked at the great brown father of waters rolling down from mid-America like the torrent of broken souls.
And a kind of holy lightning I saw flashing from his excitement and his visions, which he described so torrentially.
Quando lo trovai a Mill City quella mattina era piombato in uno di quei periodi depressi e infernali che arrivano ai giovanotti sui venticinque.
Look at that party the other night. Everybody wanted to have a good time and tried real hard but we all woke up the next day feeling sorta sad and separate. What do you think about death, Ray?
As I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer.
Only sign we have now to know which way we’re going, is ducks.
The prettiest girls live in Des Moines.
The secret of this kind of climbing,” said Japhy, “is like Zen. Don’t think. Just dance along. It’s the easiest thing in the world, actually easier than walking on flat ground which is monotonous. The cute little problems present themselves at each step and yet you never hesitate and you find yourself on some other boulder you picked out for no special reason at all, just like Zen.” Which it was. We didn’t talk much now.