"Those who write on Heaven’s walls
should mold their shit in little balls.
And those who read these lines of wit
Should eat these little balls of shit."

"The difference between pornography and art is bodily hair."

"Life is hard enough, without people having to worry themselves sick about money, too."

"Eliot did to the word ‘love’ what the Russians did to the word democracy. If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word."

"

Dear Ophelia—

Elsinore isn’t quite what I expected, or maybe there’s more than one, and I’ve come to the wrong one. The high school football players here call themselves “The Fighting Danes.” In the surrounding towns they’re knows as “The Melancholy Danes.” In the past three years they have won one game, tied two, and lost twenty-four. That’s what happens, I guess, when Hamlet goes in as a quarterback.

The last thing you said to me before I got out of the taxicab was that maybe we should get a divorce. I did not realize that life had become that uncomfortable for you. I do realize that I am a very slow realizer. I still find it hard to realize that I am an alcoholic, though even strangers know this right away.
Maybe I flatter myself when I think that I have things in common with Hamlet, that I have an important mission, that I’m temporarily mixed up about how it should be done. Hamlet had one big edge on me. His father’s ghost told him exactly what he had to do, while I am operating without instructions. But from somewhere something is trying to tell me where to go, what to do there, and why to do it. Don’t worry, I don’t hear voices. But there is this feeling that I have a destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life in New York. And I roam.
And I roam.

They paint their fire engines here with orange and black stripes, like tigers. Very striking! They use detergent in their water, so that the water will soak right through wallboard to get at a fire. That certainly makes good sense, provided it doesn’t harm the pumps and hoses. They haven’t been using it long enough to really know. I told them they should write the pump manufacturer and tell him what they’re doing, and they said they would. They think I am a very big volunteer fireman from back East. They are wonderful people. They aren’t like the sparrowfarts and dancing masters who come tapping at the Rosewater Foundation’s door. They’re like the Americans I know in the war.
Be patient, Ophelia.

Love,
Hamlet.

"