"Those are pearls that were his eyes"

'What frightens us about the carnival, I think, is not that it will come to town. Or that it will leave town, which it always does. What frightens us is the possibility that it will leave forever, and never come back, and take us with it when it goes.'

'My father was a quiet man who took things quietly, although he felt them deeply.

One of his axioms I always remember, if you must do a thing do it graciously.'

Sat all day by the riverside and slept all night in the trees.

It was there I stopped believing
in the value of self-image and experience.
I went round saying it – ‘I have no self-image
and have destroyed all my experience.
Also, I am surrounded by the dead
who speak to me through silences
on tapes.’ I know Americans believe such things,
so I’d add, ‘Not really!’ very quickly.
On the plane I thought about Tom Cruise,
how easily I could visualise his face.
I wondered if his face was a fair gauge
of where and who he’d been, and to what extent
it was the sack his soul was pushed into.