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When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leafto turn away from the sun -- it loves it there.There's nothing so spiritual about being happybut you can...more

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You just go on your nerve.

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That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.

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I have been to lots of partiesand acted perfectly disgracefulbut I never actually collapsedoh Lana Turner we love you get up

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My HeartI'm not going to cry all the timenor shall I laugh all the time,I don't prefer one "strain" to another.I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,n...more

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Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! / You really are beautiful! Pearls, / harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins!

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Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a d...more

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Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara.O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac

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… my words are lovewhich willfully parades inits room, refusing to move.

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… and I’ll be happy here and happy there, fullof tea and tears

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...but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that yo...more

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willow trees, willow trees they remind me of DesdemonaI'm so damned literaryand at the same time the waters rushing past remindme of nothing

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I love you. I love you, but I’m turning to my versesand my heart is closinglike a fist.

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My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one tr...more

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I embraced a cloud,but when I soaredit rained.