The Silence Depressed Me. It Wasn't The

My Best Friends When I Was Young Were Always Doctors. I Used To Dress Up In A White Gauze Helmet And Go Round And See Babies Born And Cadavers Cut Open. This Fascinated Me, But I Could Never Bring Myself To Disciplining Myself To The Point Where I Could Learn All The Details That One Has To Learn To Be A Good Doctor. This Is The Sort Of Opposition: Somebody Who Deals Directly With Human Experiences, Is Able To Cure, To Mend, To Help, This Sort Of Thing.

What Horrifies Me Most Is The Idea Of Being Useless: Well-educated, Brilliantly Promising, And Fading Out Into An Indifferent Middle Age.

Tonight I Am Ugly. I Have Lost All Faith In My Ability To Attract Males, And In The Female Animal That Is A Rather Pathetic Malady . . . I Don't Care About Anyone, And The Feeling Is Quite Obviously Mutual. What Is It That Makes One Attract Others?

Poetry, I Feel, Is A Tyrannical Discipline. You've Got To Go So Far, So Fast, In Such A Small Space, That You've Got To Burn Away All The Peripherals.

The Silence Drew Off, Baring The Pebbles And Shells And All The Tatty Wreckage Of My Life.