A Quote by Frank O'Hara

I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'
In New York you go to the coffee shop, have a bagel, walk down the street, get hassled, run into someone else. People just waltz into your world and it's believable.
If you believe a black cat is bad luck, people think you're crazy, but plenty of times, if I see a black cat down my street, I turn around and go the other way. Even if I'm late. I'll be late for the airport and be in a limo, and if I see a black cat, I'll be like, 'Sir, you have to turn around and go down the next street.'
I was down after divorce - I was all the way down. And I just felt like, "God, I gotta turn this around. I can't go down like this. I have to know that this is happening for a reason." And I knew that I had to turn to music.
If you go into a bank or a shop and you want them to believe that you're going to shoot them, that's an acting exercise. If you want to turn to someone else who's as tooled up as you are and persuade them to put their knife down because you'll use your knife, that's an acting exercise. Nine out of 10 delinquents are frustrated actors.
People are so busy chasing happiness- if they would slow down and turn around, they would give it a chance to catch up with them.
If you don't understand how something works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You don't know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don't understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don't go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God.
There is stuff going on inside me. But I have always been told to go out there and pitch like you can't tell if you just struck somebody out or just gave up a home run. If something bad happens, I don't dwell on it. Just give me the ball and let me pitch.
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
The most fun to do in the weightlessness is going down the ladder headfirst, walking on the ceiling, chasing after M&M's that you throw up into the air - they're just bouncing around all over the place and you go around like a fish eating them. I often tell kids that when you go into space and experience weightlessness, the serious adult in you gives way to the child you used to be, who had imagination, who had no bounds on what was possible.
You can't go around chasing your own plays and showing up every time somebody does one somewhere. You just cross your fingers and hope that they're OK.
I normally work like a vampire. Around 8 to 9 P.M., what I call 'the spirits' actually show up, and then I just go in the booth and scream on top of a track. I only sing on the mic. I don't sit down and write anything.
I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be. It's wonderful to have someone like that around, you always feel you can count on them. You can go away and come back, you can change your mind and your hairdo and your politics, and when you get through doing all these upsetting things, you look around and there they are, just the way they were, just being.
He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down it clear to the bottom. And after you had been down inside pain a while you found that like with cold water it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around it trying to get up your nerve. He knew pain.
I never really thought in terms of the concept of being a rock star - being around people like that just seemed like normal day-in-the-life stuff to me. Those were just the surroundings I grew up in.
The guys I came up with would always tell me that no matter if we're up or down, if you go in, get in there and play hard. But just know that sometimes you just have to be patient and wait your turn.
I run from Horatio Street down just past Battery Park City and back. It's amazing to run and see the Statue of Liberty and the ferries coming in. People think if you're not near Central Park, there's nowhere to go, but there's a whole ecosystem happening down here.
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