there's no doubt he was a great writer who now has senility issues. Even so, I find these comments -- presuming they were not taken out of context -- extraordinary.
It seems as though many "great writers" seem to border on insanity. It must be something in the brain of the artistist types.
At the time his stuff got really popular, some of us were high a lot of the time, so I think that just made him seem to be a "great writer".