'If man so readily forgets he is accursed, it is because he has always been so.' --E M Cioran

"The price of opium is relatively the same today as it was in the year 900 B.C." --Hunter S Thompson, Generation of Swine (1988)

"Bush [Sr] will seek out filth wherever it lives--going without sleep for days at a time, if necessary--and when he finds a new heap he will fall down and wallow crazily in it, making snorting sounds out of his nose and rolling over on his back and kicking his legs up in the air like a wild hog coming to water." --ibid

"I'll be a happy idiot
& struggle for the legal tender

where the arrows take aim
& lay their claim
to the heart & the soul of the sender"

--Jackson Browne

'the flowers withered,
Their colors faded away.
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in brooding
And the long rains were falling.'

--Ono no Komachi (tr Donald Keene)

'And I am here to burn for you like a black candle,
Burn like a black candle and not dare to pray.'

--Osip Mandelshtam (tr James Greene)

"Krieg und Sternenflug hocken beieinander." --Nelly Sachs ('War and starflight crouch next to each other')

"Though who knows? Perhaps it was the migraine brought on the poem." --Thomas Disch, Camp Concentration (1972)