I don't remember lighting this cigarette and I don't remember if I'm here alone or waiting for someone. - Leonard Cohen

to the young let me say:
I am not sage, rebbe, roshi, guru
I am Bad Example.
to experienced persons
who have criticized my life work
as cheap, superficial, pretentious, insignificant:
you do not know
how Right you are

You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children, you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god.

I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work — just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.