When that little clock on my wall says —Olaotan! Olaotan!! Olaotan!!! It's half past time to write", I only have three things at my disposal: A pen, A piece of paper, and a crowded mind.

It taught that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes.

Oh, well, faint heart never won so much as a scrap of paper

Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

And then another letter had come from Christopher, so devastating that Amelia wondered how mere scratches of ink on paper could rip someone's soul to shreds. She had wondered how she could feel so much pain and still survive.

The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo.

Was it animal pee or human pee? Someone asked.How would I know? What, am I an expert in the study of pee?

You were with Margo Roth Spiegelman last night? At THREE A.M.? I nodded. Alone? I nodded. Oh my God, if you hooked up with her, you have to tell me every single thing that happened. You have to write me a term paper on the look and feel of Margo Roth Spiegelman's breasts. Thrity pages, minimum! I want you to do a photo-realistic pencil drawing. A sculpture would also be acceptable. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to write a sestina about Margo Roth Spiegelman's breasts? Your six words are: pink, round, firmness, succulent, supple, and pillowy. Personally, I think at least one of the words should be buhbuhbuhbuh.

And speaking of this wonderful machine:[840] I'm puzzled by the difference between, the kind Which goes on solely in the poet's mind,A testing of performing words, while he,The other kind, much more decorous, whenHe's in his study writing with a pen. In method B the hand supports the thought,The abstract battle is concretely fought.The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar[850] A canceled sunset or restore a star,And thus it physically guides the phraseToward faint daylight through the inky maze. is agony! The brainIs soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain.A muse in overalls directs the drill Which grinds and which no effort of the willCan interrupt, while the automatonIs taking off what he has just put on Or walking briskly to the corner store [860] To buy the paper he has read before.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.