In the words of middleweight Sugar Ray Seales, 1972 Olympic Gold Medalist, a veteran of more than four hundred amateur and professional fights who went blind as a consequence of ring injuries: "I went into the wilderness, and fought the animals there, and when I came back I was blind."

Mailer on Ali:

Now it was as if Ali carried the idea to some advanced place where he could assimilate punches faster than other fighters, could literally transmit the shock through more parts of his body, or direct it to the best path, as if ideally he were working toward the ability to receive that five-punch combination (or six or seven!) yet be so ready to ship the impact out to each arm, each organ and each leg, that the punishment might be digested, and the mind remain clear. It was a study to watch Ali take punches.

Sugar Ray Robinson:

Rhythm is everything in boxing. Every move you make starts with your heart, and that's in rhythm or you're in trouble.

American Death Poems

Alice Mae Johnson, housewife, Call’s Junction, Mississippi; December 2, 1976:

This god damned kudzu
Crawled all the way from Japan
They tell me, climbing
Every green thumb that said “Wait”




Linda Crick, beauty queen, Fort Lauderdale, FL; August 6, 1988:

All you beautiful
People, the other side of
This face, here it is:
One less chance to look at me




Michael Jarvice, investor, New York, N.Y.; March 12, 2009:

Millions gone millions
Know: I’m poor while the rest are
Penniless. A jump
From this height: on top again




Bernard “Bernie” Madoff, broker, Federal Correctional Institution Butner Medium, Butner, N.C.; October 4, 2012:

I’m sorry the way
God is sorry, believed in
Just one big Ponzi
This shiv in my neck says it



Officer Wade Limonchik, police officer, Newark, NJ; September 30, 1991:

Crackheads’re good shots
When aiming for a hit they
Like. So why’d this guy
Off me if he can’t smoke me




Maurice Free, day care attendee, Andrilla Falls, S.D.; April 2, 1967:

Fingers in my mouth
Ten toes on my feet. Do green
Eggs and ham come from
Green pigs and chickens, mommy




Benny Archman, nudist, Gray Springs, NY; May 22, 1987:

Nudity is the
Oldest sport. Everyone’s a
Winner. In the dark
At least, we’re all undressing




August Rickart, philosopher, New Haven, CT; September 20, 1934:

In the bathroom and
There’s Spinoza, grinding glass
Sunshades for shadows
Blind to spelunk Plato’s cave




David Foster Wallace, novelist, Ponoma, CA; September 12, 2008:

This is water, said
The fish to the page. Fingers
Pressed to my neck’s gills
Goodbye trout, salmon, David

Denis Johnson

"Everything is arranged doesn't mean you should expect to get anywhere or accomplish anything. In fact, for sanity's sake, those two ideas have to be banished: the idea of getting somewhere and the idea of accomplishing something. Everything is arranged means that all is complete, the great plan of the universe is unfolding before our eyes. So eat, drink, sleep. Everything is arranged."

Foreva

"The first time I went to Darmstadt,
[American composer] La Monte Young was pulling a chair
and table
around the room. It was called Furniture Music
and just blew me away,"

said sound artist Annea Lockwood
in the Australian newspaper
claiming to be that nation's
heart.