The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses. It’s more interesting and all.
I mean you can’t hardly ever simplify and unify something just because somebody wants you to.
This fall you’re riding for—it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling.
But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they’re brilliant and creative to begin with—which, unfortunately, is rarely the case—tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind than men do who are merely brilliant and creative.
What he was doing was, he was sitting on the floor right next to the couch, in the dark and all, and he was sort of petting me or patting me on the goddam head.