Background Image

...

Existence Was Not Only Absurd, It Was Plain Hard Work. Think Of How Many Times You Put On Your Underwear In A Lifetime. It Was Appalling, It Was Disgusting, It Was Stupid.

-Charles Bukowski

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Existence Was Not Only

Charles Bukowski

...

Existence Was Not Only Absurd, It Was Plain Hard Work. Think Of How Many Times You Put On Your Underwear In A Lifetime. It Was Appalling, It Was Disgusting, It Was Stupid.

Views: 13

Topic

More From Charles Bukowski

Why Do We Embroider Everything We Say With Special Emphasis When All We Really Need To Do Is Simply Say What Needs To He Said? Of Course The Fact Is That There Is Very Little That Needs To Be Said.

There Is A Place In The Heart That Will Never Be Filled A Space And Even During The Best Moments And The Greatest Times Times We Will Know It We Will Know It More Than Ever There Is A Place In The Heart That Will Never Be Filled And We Will Wait And Wait In That Space.

Unless The Sun Inside You Is Burning Your Gut, Don't Do It

Hey, Hank, I Notice All The Women Around Your Place Lately ... Good Looking Stuff; You're Doing All Right." "sam," I Say, "that's Not True; I Am One Of God's Most Lonely Men.

Writers Are Desperate People And When They Stop Being Desperate They Stop Being Writers.

One More Creature Dizzy With Love

Nothing's News. It's The Same Old Thing In Disguise. Only One Thing Comes Without A Disguise And You Only See It Once, Or Maybe Never. Like Getting Hit By A Freight Train. Makes Us Realize That All Our Moaning About Long Lost Girls In Gingham Dresses Is Not So Important After All.

Unless It Comes Out Of Your Soul Like A Rocket, Unless Being Still Would Drive You To Madness Or Suicide Or Murder, Don't Do It. Unless The Sun Inside You Is Burning Your Gut, Don't Do It. When It Is Truly Time, And If You Have Been Chosen, It Will Do It By Itself And It Will Keep On Doing It Until You Die Or It Dies In You. There Is No Other Way. And There Never Was.

I Walk Into The Kitchen, Look At The Typer Down There On The Floor. It's A Dirty Floor. It's A Dirty Typer That Types Dirty Stories

Sometimes I Get Too Exhausted To Even Feel Bad

Human Relationships Didn't Work Anyhow. Only The First Two Weeks Had Any Zing, Then The Participants Lost Their Interest. Masks Dropped Away And Real People Began To Appear: Cranks, Imbeciles, The Demented, The Vengeful, Sadists, Killers. Modern Society Had Created Its Own Kind And They Feasted On Each Other. It Was A Duel To The Death--in A Cesspool.

It Is All Ash And Dry Leaves And Grief Gone Like An Ocean Liner.

In The Cupboard Sits My Bottle Like A Dwarf Waiting To Scratch Out My Prayers. I Drink And Cough Like Some Idiot At A Symphony, Sunlight And Maddened Birds Are Everywhere, The Phone Rings Gamboling Its Sound Against The Odds Of The Crooked Sea; I Drink Deeply And Evenly Now, I Drink To Paradise And Death And The Lie Of Love.

The Courage It Took To Get Out Of Bed Each Morning To Face The Same Things Over And Over Was Enormous.

And Don't Forget: Time Is Meant To Be Wasted, Love Fails And Death Is Useless.

But My Whole Life Has Been A Matter Of Fighting For One Simple Hour To Do What I Want To Do. There Was Always Something Getting In The Way Of My Getting To Myself.

If You're Going To Try, Go All The Way. This Could Mean Losing Girlfriends, Wives, Relatives, Jobs And Maybe Your Mind.

I Can Never Drive My Car Over A Bridge Without Thinking Of Suicide. I Can Never Look At A Lake Or An Ocean Without Thinking Of Suicide.

There Must Be A Way. Surely There Must Be A Way That We Have Not Yet Thought Of. Who Put This Brain Inside Of Me? It Cries It Demands It Says That There Is A Chance. It Will Not Say "no.

Style Means No Shield At All. Style Means No Front At All. Style Means Ultimate Naturalness. Style Means One Man Alone With Billions Of Men About.

If I Have Any Advice To Anybody It's This: Take Up Watercolor Painting.

It Was Like The Beginning Of Life And Laughter. It Was The Real Meaning Of The Sun

Drinking Is An Emotional Thing. It Joggles You Out Of The Standardism Of Everyday Life, Out Of Everything Being The Same. It Yanks You Out Of Your Body And Your Mind And Throws You Against The Wall. I Have The Feeling That Drinking Is A Form Of Suicide Where You're Allowed To Return To Life And Begin All Over The Next Day. It's Like Killing Yourself, And Then You're Reborn. I Guess I've Lived About Ten Or Fifteen Thousand Lives Now.

It Seemed To Me That I Had Never Met Another Person On Earth As Discouraging To My Happiness As My Father. And It Appeared That I Had The Same Effect Upon Him.

My Mother, Poor Fish, Wanting To Be Happy, Beaten Two Or Three Times A Week, Telling Me To Be Happy: "henry, Smile! Why Don't You Ever Smile?" And Then She Would Smile, To Show Me How, And It Was The Saddest Smile I Ever Saw

Find What You Love And Let It Kill You.

There May Not Be A Hell, But Those Who Judge May Create One. I Think People Are Over-taught. They Are Over-taught Everything. You Have To Find Out By What Happens To You, How You Will React. I'll Have To Use A Strange Term Here... "good." I Don't Know Where It Comes From, But I Feel That There's An Ultimate Strain Of Goodness Born In Each Of Us. I Don't Believe In God, But I Believe In This "goodness" Like A Tube Running Through Our Bodies. It Can Be Nurtured. It's Always Magic, When On A Freeway Packed With Traffic, A Stranger Makes Room For You To Change Lanes... It Gives You Hope.

I Don't Remember Going To Bed, But In The Morning, There I Was.

Her Eyes Always Had A Frantic, Lost Look. He Could Never Cure Her Eyes Of That.

I Am Not Like Other People. I Am Burning In Hell. The Hell Of Myself.

An Intellectual Says A Simple Thing In A Hard Way. An Artist Says A Hard Thing In A Simple Way.

You Are Thirty Minutes Late." "yes." "would You Be Thirty Minutes Late To A Wedding Or A Funeral?" "no." "why Not, Pray Tell?" "well, If The Funeral Was Mine I'd Have To Be On Time. If The Wedding Was Mine It Would Be My Funeral.

The Empty, The Angry, The Lonely, The Tricked, We Are All Museums Of Fear.

Take A Writer Away From His Typewriter And All You Have Left Is The Sickness Which Started Him Typing In The Beginning

I Enjoy The Bad Things That Are Said About Me. It Enhances Sales And Makes Me Feel Evil. I Don't Like To Feel Good 'cause I Am Good. But Evil? Yes. It Gives Me Another Dimension.

When You Play The Field Selfishly Everything Works Against You: One Can’t Insist On Love Or Demand Affection. You’re Finally Left With Whatever You Have Been Willing To Give Which Often Is: Nothing.

When I Was Young I Was Depressed All The Time. But Suicide No Longer Seemed A Possibility In My Life. At My Age There Was Very Little Left To Kill. It Was Good To Be Old, No Matter What They Said. It Was Reasonable That A Man Had To Be At Least 50 Years Old Before He Could Write With Anything Like Clarity.

The Street To My Left Was Backed Up With Traffic And I Watched The People Waiting Patiently In The Cars. There Was Almost Always A Man And A Women, Staring Straight Ahead, Not Talking. It Was, Finally, For Everyone, A Matter Of Waiting. You Waited And You Waited- For The Hospital, The Doctor, The Plumber, The Madhouse, The Jail, Papa Death Himself. First The Signal Red, Then The Signal Was Green. The Citizens Of The World Ate Food And Watched T.v. And Worried About Their Jobs Or Lack Of The Same, While They Waited.

There Is Enough Treachery, Hatred Violence Absurdity In The Average Human Being To Supply Any Given Army On Any Given Day And The Best At Murder Are Those Who Preach Against It And The Best At Hate Are Those Who Preach Love And The Best At War Finally Are Those Who Preach Peace

All That I Know Is That I Believe In The Sound Of Music And The Running Of A Horse. All Else Is Squabble.

Keep Your Money In Your Pocket. Or Bet It On A Good Horse.

I Stopped Looking For A Dream Girl, I Just Wanted One That Wasn't A Nightmare.

Sometimes A Man Doesn’t Know What To Do About Things And Sometimes It’s Best To Lie Very Still And Try Not To Think At All About Anything.

I Hated You When It Would Have Taken Less Courage To Love.

Courage To Love

There's No Light At The End Of The Tunnel, There Isn't Even A Tunnel. The Best Thing I Can Do Is Get Drunk And Listen To Classical Music. Or Sleep And Wait For Death To Get Closer. Leaving This Will Not Be A Horrible Thing. Yet I'm Glad, Somehow, That I Threw My Words In The Air: Confetti, Celebrating Nothing.

When I Begin To Doubt My Ability To Work The Word, I Simply Read Another Writer And Know I Have Nothing To Worry About. My Contest Is Only With Myself, To Do It Right, With Power, And Force, And Delight, And Gamble.

Yes?’ He Asked, Looking At Me Over The Sheet. ‘i’m A Writer Temporarily Down On My Inspirations.’ ‘oh, A Writer, Eh?’ ‘yes.’ ‘are You Sure?’ ‘no, I’m Not.’ ‘what Do You Write?’ ‘short Stories Mostly. And I’m Halfway Through A Novel.’ ‘a Novel, Eh?’ ‘yes.’ ‘what’s The Name Of It?’ ‘”the Leaky Faucet Of My Doom.”‘ ‘oh, I Like That. What’s It About?’ ‘everything.’ ‘everything? You Mean, For Instance, It’s About Cancer?’ ‘yes.’ ‘how About My Wife?’ ‘she’s In There Too.

I Sit On The Couch Watching Her Arrange Her Long Red Hair Before My Bedroom Mirror. She Pulls Her Hair Up And Piles It On Top Of Her Head- She Lets Her Eyes Look At My Eyes- Then She Drops Her Hair And Lets It Fall Down In Front Of Her Face. We Go To Bed And I Hold Her Speechlessly From The Back My Arm Around Her Neck I Touch Her Wrists And Hands Feel Up To Her Elbows No Further.

My 6 Foot Goddess Makes Me Laugh The Laughter Of The Mutilated Who Still Need Love... She Has Saved Me From Everything That Is Not Here

I Never Write In The Daytime. It's Like Running Through The Shopping Mall With Your Clothes Off. Everybody Can See You. At Night ... That's When You Pull The Tricks ... Magic.

I Think That Everything Should Be Made Available To Everybody, And I Mean Lsd, Cocaine, Codeine, Grass, Opium, The Works. Nothing On Earth Available To Any Man Should Be Confiscated And Made Unlawful By Other Men In More Seemingly Powerful And Advantageous Positions.

In A More Universal Sense, We Only Get One Thing. You Know...a Head Stone If We're Lucky; If Not, Green Grass.

It Began As A Mistake.

If You're Going To Try, Go All The Way. Otherwise, Don't Even Start.

I Will Remember The Kisses, Our Lips Raw With Love, And How You Gave Me Everything You Had And How I Offered You What Was Left Of Me.

The Streets Were Full Of Insane & Dull People. Most Of Them Lived In Nice Houses And Didn't Seem To Work, And You Wondered How They Did It.

My Dear, Find What You Love And Let It Kill You. Let It Drain You Of Your All. Let It Cling Onto Your Back And Weigh You Down Into Eventual Nothingness. Let It Kill You And Let It Devour Your Remains. For All Things Will Kill You, Both Slowly And Fastly, But It’s Much Better To Be Killed By A Lover. ~ Falsely Yours

How Can You Be True And Kind At The Same Time? How?

That Was All A Man Needed: Hope. It Was Lack Of Hope That Discouraged A Man.

We Use Such Big Words To Move Nowhere.

...having Nothing To Struggle Against They Have Nothing To Struggle For.

They Have No Idea That It Can Be Done By A Bus Driver, A Field Hand, Or A Fry Cook. They Have No Idea Where It Comes From. It Comes From Pain, Damnation And Impossibility. The Blow To The Soul Of The Gut. It Comes From Getting Burned And Seared And Slugged. It Comes From...new And Awful Places And The Same Old Places.

We Had Such Tremendous Fun And Much Agony Together For Some Years

A Man Who Can Beat The Horses Can Do Anything He Makes Up His Mind To Do.

Lighting New Cigarettes, Pouring More Drinks. It Has Been A Beautiful Fight. Still Is.

It’s Nice Enough To Make A Man Weep, But I Don’t Weep, Do You?

Love Dries Up, I Thought As I Walked Back To The Bathroom, Even Faster Than Sperm.

The Hangover Was Brutal But He Didn't Mind. It Told Him He Had Been Somewhere Else, Someplace Good.

Life's As Kind As You Let It Be.

They Laughed. Things Were Funny. They Weren't Afraid To Care. There Was No Sense To Life, To The Structure Of Things.

Daddy,' My Mother Asked, 'aren’t We Going To Run Out Of Gas?' No There’s Plenty Of God-damned Gas.' Where Are We Going?' I’m Going To Get Some God-damed Oranges!

Food Is Good For The Nerves And The Spirit. Courage Comes From The Belly – All Else Is Desperation.

There Would Never Be A Way For Me To Live Comfortably With People. Maybe I'd Become A Monk. I'd Pretend To Believe In God And Live In A Cubicle, Play An Organ And Stay Drunk On Wine.

If I Stop Writing I Am Dead. And That's The Only Way I'll Stop: Dead.

People Run From Rain But Sit In Bathtubs Full Of Water.

Knowledge Without Follow-through Is Worse Than No Knowledge.

I Seldom Know What I'm Going To Write When I Sit Down. There Isn't Much Agony And Sweat Of The Human Spirit Involved In Doing It. The Writing's Easy, It's The Living That Is Sometimes Difficult.

I Had No Interests. I Had No Interest In Anything. I Had No Idea How I Was Going To Escape. At Least The Others Had Some Taste For Life. They Seemed To Understand Something That I Didn’t Understand. Maybe I Was Lacking. It Was Possible. I Often Felt Inferior. I Just Wanted To Get Away From Them. But There Was No Place To Go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, Just More Work. I Felt Like Sleeping For Five Years But They Wouldn’t Let Me.

That The Young Rich Smell The Stink Of The Poor And Learn To Find It A Bit Amusing. They Had To Laugh, Otherwise It Would Be Too Terrifying.

And Love Was Lightning And Remembrance

I Can't Blame Her. But Wonder Why She's Here With Me? Where Are The Other Guys? How Can You Be Lucky? Having Someone The Others Have Abandoned?

It Was A Joy! Words Weren't Dull, Words Were Things That Could Make Your Mind Hum. If You Read Them And Let Yourself Feel The Magic, You Could Live Without Pain, With Hope, No Matter What Happened To You.

Death Is Not The Problem; Waiting Around For It Is.

My Body Gnaws At Me From One Side And My Spirit Gnaws At Me From The Other.

There's A Small Balcony Here, The Door Is Open And I Can See The Lights Of The Cars On The Harbor Freeway South, They Never Stop, That Roll Of Lights, On And On. All Those People. What Are They Doing? What Are They Thinking? We're All Going To Die, All Of Us, What A Circus! That Alone Should Make Us Love Each Other But It Doesn't.

This Is A World Where Everybody’s Gotta Do Something. Ya Know, Somebody Laid Down This Rule That Everybody’s Gotta Do Something, They Gotta Be Something. You Know, A Dentist, A Glider Pilot, A Narc, A Janitor, A Preacher, All That . . . Sometimes I Just Get Tired Of Thinking Of All The Things That I Don’t Wanna Do. All The Things That I Don’t Wanna Be. Places I Don’t Wanna Go, Like India, Like Getting My Teeth Cleaned. Save The Whale, All That, I Don’t Understand That . . .

People In Love Often Become Edgy, Dangerous. They Lose Their Sense Of Perspective.

I Went Home Each Night Dizzy And Sick. He Was Murdering Me With The Sound Of His Voice.

Even The Stove And The Refrigerator Looked Human, I Mean Good Human - They Seemed To Have Arms And Voices And They Said, Hang Around, Kid, It's Good Here, It Can Be Very Good Here.

Her One Drink Had Cecelia Giggling And Talking And She Was Explaining That Animals Had Souls Too. Nobody Challenged Her Opinion. It Was Possible, We Knew. What We Weren't Sure Of Was If We Had Any.

A Woman Must Be Nursed Into Subsistence By Love, Where A Man Can Become Stronger By Being Hated." - From 'cows In Art Class

Some People Have Written That My Writing Has Helped Them Go On. It Has Helped Me Too. The Writing, The Roses, The 9 Cats.

...in That Drunken Place You Would Like To Hand Your Heart To Her And Say Touch It But Then Give It Back.

Sometimes You Just Have To Pee In The Sink.

People Need Me. I Fill Them. If They Can't See Me For A While They Get Desperate, They Get Sick. But If I See Them Too Often I Get Sick. It's Hard To Feed Without Getting Fed.

Like The Fox I Run With The Hunted And If I’m Not The Happiest Man On Earth I’m Surely The Luckiest Man Alive.

What Were You Going To Do Tonight?" "i Was Going To Listen To The Songs Of Rachmaninoff." "who's That?" "a Dead Russian.

I Can See Where Creation Often Stops While The Body Still Lives And Often Does Not Care To. The Death Of Life Before Life Dies.

It Was Only The Matter Of A New Voice. Nobody Listened To An Old Voice Anymore. Old Voices Became A Part Of One's Self, Like A Fingernail.

If I Bet On Humanity, I'd Never Cash A Ticket.

I Take Much Pleasure In Being Alone But There Is Also A Strange Warm Grace In Not Being Alone.

The Wisest Thing To Do If You’re Living In Hell Is To Make Yourself Comfortable.

She Knew What She Wanted And It Wasn't / Me. / I Know More Women Like That Than Any / Other Kind.

Beauty Is Nothing, Beauty Won’t Stay. You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are To Be Ugly, Because If People Like You, You Know It’s For Something Else.

When Ginsburg Is At The Top Of His Game You Might As Well Put Down Your Toys And Listen.

What? You’d Dare Drink Right After Getting Out Of Jail For Intoxication?” That’s When You Need A Drink The Most.

Before My Death I Hope To Obtain My Life.

It's Hot Tonight And Half The Neighborhood Is Drunk. The Other Half Is Dead. If I Have Any Advice About Writing Poetry It's - Don't. I'm Going To Send Out For Some Fried Chicken.

Knowledge Is Knowing As Little As Possible.

Knowing Who You Are

There's Nothing Else As Pleasant As Being Unpleasant When There's Nothing Else To Do, And There's Usually Nothing Else To Do.

The Sea Is Made Of Blood

We Are Here To Laugh At The Odds.

I Didn't Have Any Friends At School, Didn't Want Any. I Felt Better Being Alone. I Sat On A Bench And Watched The Others Play And They Looked Foolish To Me.

Cautiously, I Allowed Myself To Feel Good At Times. I Found Moments Of Peace In Cheap Rooms Just Staring At The Knobs Of Some Dresser Or Listening To The Rain In The Dark. The Less I Needed The Better I Felt.

An Early Taste Of Death Is Not Necessarily A Bad Thing.

I Don't Know About Other People, But When I Wake Up In The Morning And Put My Shoes On, I Think, Jesus Christ, Now What?

Too Often The People Complain That They Have Done Nothing With Their Lives And Then They Wait For Somebody To Tell Them That This Isn't So.

Sundays Kill More People Than Bombs.

There's A Bluebird In My Heart That Wants To Get Out But I'm Too Clever, I Only Let Him Out At Night Sometimes When Everybody's Asleep. I Say, I Know That You're There, So Don't Be Sad. Then I Put Him Back, But He's Singing A Little In There, I Haven't Quite Let Him Die And We Sleep Together Like That With Our Secret Pact And It's Nice Enough To Make A Man Weep, But I Don't Weep, Do You?

Lawyers, Doctors, Plumbers, They All Made The Money. Writers? Writers Starved. Writers Suicided. Writers Went Mad.

Modern Women ... They Don't Sew Your Pockets ... Forget That.

With Me, My Main Vision For Life Was To Avoid As Many People As Possible. The Less People I Saw The Better I Felt.

People Don't Do Me Much Good.

All A Guy Needed Was A Chance. Somebody Was Alway Controlling Who Got A Chance And Who Didn't.

I Guess The Only Time Most People Think About Injustice Is When It Happens To Them.

It Is Possible To Be Truly Mad And To Still Exist Upon Scraps Of Life.

I Was A Man Who Thrived On Solitude; Without It I Was Like Another Man Without Food Or Water. Each Day Without Solitude Weakened Me. I Took No Pride In My Solitude; But I Was Dependent On It. The Darkness Of The Room Was Like Sunlight To Me.

Writing Is Like Going To Bed With A Beautiful Woman And Afterwards She Gets Up, Goes To Her Purse And Gives Me A Handful Of Money.

I Wasn't A Misanthrope And I Wasn't A Misogynist But I Liked Being Alone. It Felt Good To Sit Alone In A Small Space And Smoke And Drink. I Had Always Been Good Company For Myself.

Soon I'll Finish This 5th Of Puerto Rican Rum. In The Morning I'll Vomit And Shower, Drive Back In, Have A Sandwich By 1 P.m., Be Back In My Room By 2, Stretched On The Bed, Waiting For The Phone To Ring, Not Answering, My Holiday Is An Evasion, Mt Reasoning Is Not.

Genius Might Be The Ability To Say A Profound Thing In A Simple Way.

Those Who Preach God, Need God Those Who Preach Peace Do Not Have Peace Those Who Preach Love Do Not Have Love

It Doesn't Matter If Prince Charles Falls Off His Horse Or That The Hummingbird Is So Seldom Seen Or That We Are Too Senseless To Go Insane. Coffee. Give Us More Of That Nothing Coffee.

We Only Asked For Leopards To Guard Our Thinning Dreams.

Whiskey Makes The Heart Beat Faster But It Sure Doesn't Help The Mind And Isn't It Funny How You Can Ache Just From The Deadly Drone Of Existence?

Being Alone Never Felt Right. Sometimes It Felt Good, But It Never Felt Right.

Loneliness And Solitude

And Yet Women-good Women--frightened Me Because They Eventually Wanted Your Soul, And What Was Left Of Mine, I Wanted To Keep.

I'll Use The Knives For Spreading Jam, And The Gas To Warm My Greying Love.

That's The Way It Ends. The Thin Edge Of The Wedge.

Some Of My Poems Indicate That I Am Writing While Living Alone After A Split With A Woman, And I've Had Many Splits With Women. I Need Solitude More Often When I'm Not Writing Than When I Am.

And If There Is Anybody Out There Who Is Crazy Enough To Want To Become A Writer, I'd Say Go Ahead, Spit In The Eye Of The Sun, Hit Those Keys, It's The Best Madness Going, The Centuries Need Help, The Species Cry For Light And Gamble And Laughter. Give It To Them. There Are Enough Words For All Of Us.

Be It Peace Or Happiness Let It Enfold You

Things Get Bad For All Of Us, Almost Continually, And What We Do Under The Constant Stress Reveals Who/what We Are.

Was I The Only Person Who Was Distracted By This Future Without A Chance?

Drinking Is Another Way Of Thinking, Another Way Of Living. It Gives You Two Lives Instead Of One.

The Whole World Is Caught In Her Glance And At Last The Universe Is Magnificent.

I Write Right Off The Typer. I Call It My "machinegun." I Hit It Hard, Usually Late At Night While Drinking Wine And Listening To Classical Music On The Radio And Smoking Mangalore Ganesh Beedies.

To Not To Have Entirely Wasted One’s Life Seems To Be A Worthy Accomplishment, If Only For Myself.

When You Clean Up A City, You Destroy It.

As We Go On With Our Lives We Tend To Forget That The Jails And The Hospitals And The Madhouses And The Graveyards Are Packed.

I Never Understood Society. I Undersand That It Works Somehow And That It Functions As A Reality And That Its Realities Are Necessary To Keep Us From Worse Realities. But All I Sense Are That Are Plenty Of Police And Jails And Judges And Laws And That What Is Meant To Protect Me Is Breaking Me Down.

‎"she’ Mad But She’ Magic. There’ No Lie In Her Fire.

Sometimes I Feel As If We Are All Trapped In A Movie. We Know Our Lines, Where To Walk, How To Act, Only There Is No Camera. Yet, We Can't Break Out Of The Movie. And It's A Bad One.

Real Loneliness Is Not Necessarily Limited To When You Are Alone.

You Begin Saving The World By Saving One Man At A Time; All Else Is Grandiose Romanticism Or Politics.

I See Men Assassinated Around Me Every Day. I Walk Through Rooms Of The Dead, Streets Of The Dead, Cities Of The Dead; Men Without Eyes, Men Without Voices; Men With Manufactured Feelings And Standard Reactions; Men With Newspaper Brains, Television Souls And High School Ideas.

I Was Drawn To All The Wrong Things: I Liked To Drink, I Was Lazy, I Didn't Have A God, Politics, Ideas, Ideals. I Was Settled Into Nothingness; A Kind Of Non-being, And I Accepted It. I Didn't Make For An Interesting Person. I Didn't Want To Be Interesting, It Was Too Hard. What I Really Wanted Was Only A Soft, Hazy Space To Live In, And To Be Left Alone.

I Was Only Kidding About The Hundred," She Says. Oh," I Say, "what Will It Cost Me?" She Lights Her Cigarette With My Lighter And Looks At Me Through The Flame: Her Eyes Tell Me. Look," I Say, "i Don't Think I Can Ever Pay That Price Again.

If It Doesn't Come Bursting Out Of You In Spite Of Everything, Don’t Do It.

Where Some God Pissed A Rain Of Reason To Make Things Grow Only To Die.

Love Is All Right For Those Who Can Handle The Psychic Overload. It's Like Trying To Carry A Full Garbage Can On Your Back Over A Rushing River Of Piss.

The Apartment Was Built At The Edge Of A High Cliff So That When You Looked Out The Back Window It Seemed As If You Were Twelve Floors Up Instead Of Four. It Was Very Much Like Living On The Edge Of The World - A Last Resting Place Before The Final Big Drop.

So, That’s What They Wanted: Lies. Beautiful Lies. That’s What They Needed. People Were Fools. It Was Going To Be Easy For Me.

Death Meant Little To Me. It Was The Last Joke In A Series Of Bad Jokes.

You Were Destroyed By What You Befriended.

A Man Needed Somebody. There Wasn't Anybody Around, So You Had To Make Up Somebody, Make Him Up To Be Like A Man Should Be. It Wasn't Make-believe Or Cheating. The Other Way Was Make-believe And Cheating: Living Your Life Without A Man Like Him Around.

The World Is Full Of Boring, Identical And Mindless People.

Bad Writing's Like Bad Women: There's Just Not Much You Can Do About It

A Woman Has To Have Something On Or There's Nothing To Take Off.

To Me, Nudity Is A Joke. I Don't Think Nude People Are Very Attractive At All. I Like My Women Fully Clothed. I Like To Imagine What Might Be Under There. It Might Not Be The Standard Thing. Imagine, Stripping A Woman Down, And She Has A Body Like A Little Submarine. With Periscope, Propellers, Torpedoes. That Would Be The One For Me. I'd Marry Her Right Off And Be Faithful To The End.

There's A Bluebird In My Heart That Wants To Get Out But I'm Too Tough For Him, I Say, Stay In There, I'm Not Going To Let Anybody See You.

The Less I Needed, The Better I Felt.

Art Is Its Own Excuse, And It's Either Art Or It's Something Else. It's Either A Poem Or A Piece Of Cheese.

I Mean, Say That You Figure That Everything Is Senseless, Then It Can't Be Quite Senseless Because You Are Aware That It's Senseless And Your Awareness Of Senselessness Almost Gives It Sense. You Know What I Mean?

Sometimes You Climb Out Of Bed In The Morning And You Think, I'm Not Going To Make It, But You Laugh Inside — Remembering All The Times You've Felt That Way.

My Hands Dead My Heart Dead Silence Adagio Of Rocks The World Ablaze That's The Best For Me.

Little Sun Little Moon Little Dog And A Little To Eat And A Little To Love And A Little To Live For In A Little Room Filled With Little Mice Who Gnaw And Dance And Run While I Sleep Waiting For A Little Death In The Middle Of A Little Morning In A Little City In A Little State My Little Mother Dead My Little Father Dead In A Little Cemetery Somewhere. I Have Only A Little Time To Tell You This: Watch Out For Little Death When He Comes Running But Like All The Billions Of Little Deaths It Will Finally Mean Nothing And Everything: All Your Little Tears Burning Like The Dove, Wasted.

We Are Born Like This Into This Into These Carefully Mad Wars Into The Sight Of Broken Factory Windows Of Emptiness Into Bars Where People No Longer Speak To Each Other Into Fist Fights That End As Shootings And Knifings Born Into This Into Hospitals Which Are So Expensive That It’s Cheaper To Die Into Lawyers Who Charge So Much It’s Cheaper To Plead Guilty Into A Country Where The Jails Are Full And The Madhouses Closed Into A Place Where The Masses Elevate Fools Into Rich Heroes

Dear Child, I Only Did To You What The Sparrow Did To You; I Am Old When It Is Fashionable To Be Young; I Cry When It Is Fashionable To Laugh. I Hated You When It Would Have Taken Less Courage To Love.

As A Child I Suppose I Was Not Quite Normal. My Happiest Times Were When I Was Left Alone In The House On A Saturday.

I Will Put On My Shoes And Shirt And Get Out Of Here - It'll Be Better For All Of Us.

The Secret Is Writing Down One Simple Line After Another.

If It Doesn't Come Bursting Out Of You In Spite Of Everything, Don't Do It. Unless It Comes Unasked Out Of Your Heart And Your Mind And Your Mouth And Your Gut, Don't Do It.

It Was Better For Me When I Could Imagine Greatness In Others, Even If It Wasn't Always There.

I'm Not The Cruel Type, But They Are, And That's The Secret.

It Didn't Pay To Trust Another Human Being. Humans Didn't Have It, Whatever It Took.

Not Everybody Thought They Could Be A Dentist Or An Automobile Mechanic But Everybody Knew They Could Be A Writer.

If Something Burns Your Soul With Purpose And Desire, It’s Your Duty To Be Reduced To Ashes By It. Any Other Form Of Existence Will Be Yet Another Dull Book In The Library Of Life.

My Youth, One Time, That Time I Knew Even Through The Nothingness, It Was A Celebration Of Something Not To Do But Only Know.

There Is No Hurry. Time Means Nothing To You.

I Was Only Photographing In Words The Reality Of It All.

That’s When I First Learned That It Wasn’t Enough To Just Do Your Job, You Had To Have An Interest In It, Even A Passion For It.

There Is Something About Writing Poetry That Brings A Man Close To The Cliff's Edge.

I Had No Feeling For The Things So Many Others Needed.

Nobody Can Save You But Yourself And You’re Worth Saving. It’s A War Not Easily Won But If Anything Is Worth Winning Then This Is It.

Trouble And Pain Were What Kept A Man Alive. Or Trying To Avoid Trouble And Pain. It Was A Full Time Job.

The Laughing Heart Your Life Is Your Life Don’t Let It Be Clubbed Into Dank Submission. Be On The Watch. There Are Ways Out. There Is A Light Somewhere. It May Not Be Much Light But It Beats The Darkness. Be On The Watch. The Gods Will Offer You Chances. Know Them. Take Them. You Can’t Beat Death But You Can Beat Death In Life, Sometimes. And The More Often You Learn To Do It, The More Light There Will Be. Your Life Is Your Life. Know It While You Have It. You Are Marvelous The Gods Wait To Delight In You.

But Then If You Lied To A Man About His Talent Just Because He Was Sitting Across From You, That Was The Most Unforgivable Lie Of Them All, Because That Was Telling Him To Go On, To Continue Which Was The Worst Way For A Man Without Real Talent To Waste His Life, Finally. But Many People Did Just That, Friends And Relatives Mostly.

Morals Were Restrictive, But They Were Grounded On Human Experience.

Human Experience

It's Not The Large Things That Send A Man To The Madhouse... No, It's The Continuing Series Of Small Tragedies... Not The Death Of His Love But The Shoelace That Snaps With No Time Left.

Trending Author

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Category