for John Grant
My father-in-law writes from Umbria (where peasants eat songbirds
for lunch and pray beneath frescoes by Giotto): Saturday, 30 Jan. (last
day of the season wherein big men can kill little birds).

Lyndon Johnson, while being escorted by a young Marine who said,
"That one over there is your helicopter, Sir," replied, placing his arm
around the boy, "Son, they're all my helicopters."

Sam said, "I might be white bread, but there is one pissed-off nigger in
my heart."

McPherson says he doesn't see anything in the world worth coming
back for. He wants to get off the wheel, says, "I don't want to come
back as anything — not even a bumblebee."

So I say, "Oh, Jim, you'd make a good bumblebee," but I was thinking:
That should be enough for anybody's God.

It would be trite to describe the clocksmith's house — the way it
sounded like bees in there. "You can never have enough clocks in your
house." This from a man who had thousands in his. I asked, "You
probably don't even hear them anymore." He said, "I hear them when
they stop."

Lyle said, "It's all right to be a fool; it's just not all right to be a old
fool."

Steve, the banjo wasn't all they smashed. It was every window. It was
every thing I had. You don't want to feel the wind blow through your
house that way.

Another friend said, "I am chained to the earth to pay for the freedom
of my eyes."