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I Have A Face Like A Washrag. I Sing Love Songs And Carry Steel. I Would Rather Die Than Cry. I Can't Stand Hounds Can't Live Without Them. I Hang My Head Against The White Refrigerator And Want To Scream Like The Last Weeping Of Life Forever But I Am Bigger Than The Mountains.

-Charles Bukowski

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I Have A Face

Charles Bukowski

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I Have A Face Like A Washrag. I Sing Love Songs And Carry Steel. I Would Rather Die Than Cry. I Can't Stand Hounds Can't Live Without Them. I Hang My Head Against The White Refrigerator And Want To Scream Like The Last Weeping Of Life Forever But I Am Bigger Than The Mountains.

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Life's As Kind As You Let It Be.

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

I Could Read The Great Books But The Great Books Don't Interest Me.

That's What Friendship Means: Sharing The Prejudice Of Experience.

I Couldn't Get Myself To Read The Want Ads. The Thought Of Sitting In Front Of A Man Behind A Desk And Telling Him That I Wanted A Job, That I Was Qualified For A Job, Was Too Much For Me. Frankly, I Was Horrified By Life, At What A Man Had To Do Simply In Order To Eat, Sleep, And Keep Himself Clothed. So I Stayed In Bed And Drank. When You Drank The World Was Still Out There, But For The Moment It Didn't Have You By The Throat.

This Is Very Important -- To Take Leisure Time. Pace Is The Essence. Without Stopping Entirely And Doing Nothing At All For Great Periods, You're Gonna Lose Everything...just To Do Nothing At All, Very, Very Important. And How Many People Do This In Modern Society? Very Few. That's Why They're All Totally Mad, Frustrated, Angry And Hateful.

Love Is A Horse With A Broken Leg Trying To Stand While 45,000 People Watch.

He Asked, "what Makes A Man A Writer?" "well," I Said, "it's Simple, It's Either You Get It Down On Paper Or You Jump Off A Bridge. Writers Are Desperate People And When They Stop Being Desperate They Stop Being Writers." "are You Desperate?" "i Don't Know.

Experience Can Dull. With Most Men Experience Is A Series Of Mistakes; The More Experience You Have The Less You Know.

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.

Some Men Never Die And Some Men Never Live But We're All Alive Tonight.

A Good Book Can Make An Almost Impossible Existence, Liveable ( From 'the Luck Of The Word' )

You Have To Lay Down In The Center Of The Action Lay Down And Wait Until It Charges Then You Must Get Up Face It Get It Before It Gets You The Whole Process Is More Shy Than Vulnerable So Lay Down And Wait Sometimes It's Ten Minutes Sometimes It's Years Sometimes It Never Arrives But You Can't Rush It Push It There's No Way To Cheat Or Get A Jump On It You Have To Lay Down Lay Down And Wait Like An Animal .

I Am A Poem. There Is No Way Out.

The Secret Is Writing Down One Simple Line After Another.

The Way To Create Art Is To Burn And Destroy Ordinary Concepts And To Substitute Them With New Truths That Run Down From The Top Of The Head And Out Of The Heart

You've Got To Rise From The Floor Alone Or Fall Back Alone.

Love Iz A Big Fat Turkey And Every Day Iz Thanksgiving

I Was Naturally A Loner, Content Just To Live With A Woman, Eat With Her, Sleep With Her, Walk Down The Street With Her. I Didn't Want Conversation, Or To Go Anywhere Except The Racetrack Or The Boxing Matches. I Didn't Understand T.v. I Felt Foolish Paying Money To Go Into A Movie Theatre And Sit With Other People To Share Their Emotions. Parties Sickened Me. I Hated The Game-playing, The Dirty Play, The Flirting, The Amateur Drunks, The Bores.

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

I Remember Awakening One Morning And Finding Everything Smeared With The Color Of Forgotten Love.

My Flesh Looked Like It Wasn't Trying. It Looked Like It Hated Being Part Of Me.

You Boys Can Keep Your Virgins Give Me Hot Old Women In High Heels With Asses That Forgot To Get Old.

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.

Beware Those Quick To Praise For They Need Praise In Return Beware Those Who Are Quick To Censor They Are Afraid Of What They Do Not Know Beware Those Who Seek Constant Crowds For They Are Nothing Alone Beware The Average Man The Average Woman Beware Their Love, Their Love Is Average Seeks Average

The Ladies Usually Go For The Biggest Damn Fool They Can Find; That Is Why The Human Race Stands Where It Does Today: We Have Bred The Clever And Lasting Casanovas, All Hollow Inside, Like The Chocolate Easter Bunnies We Foster Upon Our Poor Children.

Purple Does Something Strange To Me

There's No Clarity. There Was Never Meant To Be Clarity.

It's Better To Do A Dull Thing With Style Than A Dangerous Thing Without It.

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.

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.

Bad Luck For The Young Poet Would Be A Rich Father, An Early Marriage, An Early Success Or The Ability To Do Anything Well.

There Were Always Men Looking For Jobs In America. There Were Always All These Usable Bodies. And I Wanted To Be A Writer. Almost Everybody Was A Writer. Not Everybody Thought They Could Be A Dentist Or An Automobile Mechanic But Everybody Knew They Could Be A Writer. Of Those Fifty Guys In The Room, Probably Fifteen Of Them Thought They Were Writers. Almost Everybody Used Words And Could Write Them Down, I.e., Almost Everybody Could Be A Writer. But Most Men, Fortunately, Aren't Writers, Or Even Cab Drivers, And Some Men - Many Men - Unfortunately Aren't Anything.

Almost Everybody Is Born A Genius And Buried An Idiot.

Thought Provoking

But Right Now It's Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Bob Dylan All The Way.

I Remember When Each 4th Lot Was Vacant And Overgrown, And The Landlord Only Go This Rent When You Had It, And Each Day Was Clear And Good And Each Moment Was Full Of Promise.

Each Man's Hell Is In A Different Place: Mine Is Just Up And Behind My Ruined Face.

There Was Something About That City, Though It Didn't Let Me Feel Guilty That I Had No Feeling For The Things So Many Others Needed. It Let Me Alone. Sitting Up In My Bed The Lights Out, Hearing The Outside Sounds, Lifting My Cheap Bottle Of Wine, Letting The Warmth Of The Grape Enter Me As I Heard The Rats Moving About The Room, I Preferred Them To Humans. Being Lost, Being Crazy Maybe Is Not So Bad If You Can Be That Way Undisturbed. New Orleans Gave Me That. Nobody Ever Called My Name.

No Matter How Little A Man Has He Will Find That He Will Always Settle For Less.

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.

The Role Of The Poet Is Almost Nothing...drearily Nothing. And When He Steps Outside Of His Boots And Tries To Get Tough As Our Dear Ezra [pound] Did, He Will Get His Pink Little Ass Slapped.

Censorship Is The Tool Of Those Who Have The Need To Hide Actualities From Themselves And From Others.

The Male, For All His Bravado And Exploration, Is The Loyal One, The One Who Generally Feels Love. The Female Is Skilled At Betrayal And Torture And Damnation.

I Wish To Weep But Sorrow Is Stupid. I Wish To Believe But Belief Is A Graveyard.

Each Person Is Only Given So Many Evenings And Each Wasted Evening Is A Gross Violation Against The Natural Course Of Your Only Life.

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 Broke That Town In Half Like A Wooden Match.

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.

This Time Has Finished Me.

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

I Have Loved You Woman As Surely As I Have Named You Rust And Sand And Nylon.

Don't Fight Your Demons. Your Demons Are Here To Teach You Lessons. Sit Down With Your Demons And Have A Drink And A Chat And Learn Their Names And Talk About The Burns On Their Fingers And Scratches On Their Ankles. Some Of Them Are Very Nice.

But As God Said, Crossing His Legs, I See Where I Have Made Plenty Of Poets But Not So Very Much Poetry.

The Public Takes From A Writer, Or A Writing, What It Needs And Lets The Remainder Go. But What They Take Is Usually What They Need Least And What They Let Go Is What They Need Most.

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.

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

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.

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Often Unbearable.

Human Relationships Simply Aren't Durable. I Think Back To The Women In My Life. They Seem Non-existent.

Eleven Months. Now She's Gone Gone As They Go.

Fay Had A Spot Of Blood On The Left Side Of Her Mouth And I Took A Wet Cloth And Wiped It Off. Women Were Meant To Suffer; No Wonder They Asked For Constant Declarations Of Love.

From The Beginning, Through The Middle Years And Up To The End: Too Bad, Too Bad, Too Bad.

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Bad Taste Creates Many More Millionaires Than Good Taste.

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.

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.

Many A Good Man Has Been Put Under The Bridge By A Woman.

I Am Aware That A Computer Can’t Create A Poem, But Neither Can A Typewriter.

Dogs And Angels Are Not Very Far Apart

The Less I Needed, The Better I Felt.

Those Faces You See Every Day On The Streets Were Not Created Entirely Without Hope: Be Kind To Them: Like You They Have Not Escaped.

... To Die On A Kitchen Floor At 7 O'clock In The Morning While Other People Are Frying Eggs Is Not So Rough Unless It Happens To You.

There Are No Good Wars Or Bad Wars. The Only Thing Bad About A War Is To Lose It. All Wars Have Been Fought For A So-called Good Cause On Both Sides. But Only The Victor's Cause Becomes History's Noble Cause. It's Not A Matter Of Who Is Right Or Who Is Wrong, It's A Matter Of Who Has The Best Generals And The Better Army!

Great Books Are The Ones We Need

I Don’t Understand People, Never Will. It Looks Like I Got To Travel Pretty Much Alone.

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.

I Had No Freedom. I Had Nothing.

Sex Is Interesting, But It's Not Totally Important. I Mean It's Not Even As Important (physically) As Excretion. A Man Can Go Seventy Years Without A Piece Of Ass, But He Can Die In A Week Without A Bowel Movement.

There Are So Many Days When Living Stops And Pulls Up And Sits And Waits Like A Train On The Rails.

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.

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

The Difference Between A Democracy And A Dictatorship Is That In A Democracy You Vote First And Take Orders Later; In A Dictatorship You Don't Have To Waste Your Time Voting.

People Don't Do Me Much Good.

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.

The Best Thing About The Bedroom Was The Bed. I Liked To Stay In Bed For Hours, Even During The Day With Covers Pulled Up To My Chin. It Was Good In There, Nothing Ever Occurred In There, No People, Nothing.

That's How It Is With Books, Isn't It: They're Not In A Hurry. They'll Wait For You Till You're Ready. People Empty Me. I Have To Go Away To Refill.

The Tired Sunsets And The Tired People - It Takes A Lifetime To Die And No Time At All.

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

If You Have The Ability To Love, Love Yourself First.

Ability To Love

I Am Not A Snob; It Is Simply That I Am Not Interested With What Most People Have To Say, Or What They Want To Do — Mostly With My Time.

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.

And I Said To Myself That He Was The First Thing That I Had Ever Missed In My Life.

To Experience Real Agony Is Something Hard To Write About, Impossible To Understand While It Grips You; You're Frightened Out Of Your Wits, Can’t Sit Still, Move, Or Even Go Decently Insane.

Most People Are Much Better At Saying Things In Letters Than In Conversation, And Some People Can Write Artistic, Inventive Letters, But When They Try A Poem Or Story Or Novel They Become Pretentious.

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

There's No Defense Except All The Errors Made

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

Love Breaks My Bones And I Laugh

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.

I Am A Series Of Small Victories And Large Defeats.

Small Victories

… And We Are In Bed Together Laughing And We Don’t Care About Anything.

Don’t Do It. Don’t Love Me.

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

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.

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

I Lapsed Into My Pathetic Cut-off Period. Often With Humans, Both Good And Bad, My Senses Simply Shut Off, They Get Tired, I Give Up. I Am Polite. I Nod. I Pretend To Understand Because I Don’t Want Anybody To Be Hurt. That Is The One Weakness That Has Lead Me Into The Most Trouble. Trying To Be Kind To Others I Often Get My Soul Shredded Into A Kind Of Spiritual Pasta. No Matter. My Brain Shuts Off. I Listen. I Respond. And They Are Too Dumb To Know That I Am Not There.

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

I’ve Had So Many Knives Stuck Into Me, When They Hand Me A Flower I Can’t Quite Make Out What It Is. It Takes Time.

Few Beautiful Women Were Willing To Indicate In Public That They Belonged To Someone. I Had Known Enough Women To Realize This. I Accepted Them For What They Were And Love Came Hard And Very Seldom. When It Did It Was Usually For The Wrong Reasons. One Simply Became Tired Of Holding Back Love And Let It Go Because It Needed Some Place To Go. Then, Usually, There Was Trouble.

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.

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

Belane, Are You Nuts?" Who Knows? Insanity Is Comparative. Who Sets The Norm?

There Are Only Two Things Wrong With Money: Too Much Or Too Little.

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

Look, Let Me Put It This Way: With Me, You’re Number One And There Isn’t Even A Number Two.

Writing About A Writer's Block Is Better Than Not Writing At All

It’s So Easy To Be Easy—if You Let It.

You Were Destroyed By What You Befriended.

And The Color In My Eyes Has Gone Back Into The Sea.

And Love Is A Word Used Too Much And Much Too Soon.

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.

Pull A String, A Puppet Moves ... Each Man Must Realize That It Can All Disappear Very Quickly: The Cat, The Woman, The Job, The Front Tire, The Bed, The Walls, The Room; All Our Necessities Including Love, Rest On Foundations Of Sand - And Any Given Cause, No Matter How Unrelated: The Death Of A Boy In Hong Kong Or A Blizzard In Omaha ... Can Serve As Your Undoing. All Your Chinaware Crashing To The Kitchen Floor, Your Girl Will Enter And You'll Be Standing, Drunk, In The Center Of It And She'll Ask: My God, What's The Matter? And You'll Answer: I Don't Know, I Don't Know.

Of One Hundred Movies There's One That Is Fair, One That's Good And Ninety Eight That Are Very Bad. Most Movies Start Badly And Steadily Get Worse

If You Want To Know Who Your Friends Are, Get Yourself A Jail Sentence.

There's Nothing Unusual About Love.

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.

Well, We Lost It, And That’s All There Is To That.

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.

I No Longer Want It All, Just Some Comfort And Some Sex And Some Minor Love.

Young Or Old, Good Or Bad, I Don't Think Anything Dies As Slow And As Hard As A Writer.

I Am A Series Of Small Victories And Large Defeats And I Am As Amazed As Any Other That I Have Gotten From There To Here.

Small Victories

Once A Woman Turns Against You, Forget It. They Can Love You, Then Something Turns In Them. They Can Watch You Dying In A Gutter, Run Over By A Car, And They'll Spit On You.

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.

Sexual Intercourse Is Kicking Death In The Ass While Singing.

Some Men Hope For Revolution But When You Revolt And Set Up Your New Government You Find Your New Government Is Still The Same Old Papa, He Has Only Put On A Cardboard Mask.

The Poet, As A Rule, Is A Half-man - A Sissy, Not A Real Person, And He Is In No Shape To Lead Real Men In Matters Of Blood, Or Courage.

There Was Something About That City, Though It Didn't Let Me Feel Guilty That I Had No Feeling For The Things So Many Others Needed. It Let Me Alone.

Figuring The Average Poet Starts At 16, I Am 23.

Why Did I Come Here? I Thought. Why Is It Always Only A Matter Of Choosing Between Something Bad And Something Worse?

Her Violence Frightened Me. She Always Claimed That I Was The Jealous One, And I Was Often Jealous, But When I Saw Things Working Against Me I Simply Became Disgusted And Withdrew. Lydia Was Different. She Reacted. She Was The Head Cheerleader At The Game Of Violence.

It's Possible To Love A Human Being If You Don't Know Them Too Well.

There Are Policemen In The Street And Angels In The Clouds

People Are Strange: They Are Constantly Angered By Trivial Things, But On A Major Matter Like Totally Wasting Their Lives, They Hardly Seem To Notice.

They Looked As If Nothing Had Ever Touched Them--all Well-mothered, Protected, With A Soft Sheen Of Contentment. None Of Them Had Ever Been In Jail, Or Worked Hard With Their Hands, Or Even Gotten A Traffic Ticket. Skimmed-milk Jollies, The Whole Bunch.

The Dog Approached Again, Cautiously. I Found The Bologna Sandwich, Ripped Off A Chunk, Wiped The Cheap Watery Mustard Off, Then Placed It On The Sidewalk. The Dog Walked Up To The Bit Of Sandwich, Put His Nose To It, Sniffed, Then Turned And Walked Off. This Time He Didn't Look Back. He Accelerated Down The Street. No Wonder I Had Been Depressed All My Life. I Wasn't Getting Proper Nourishment.

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

I Only Want Sweet Peace And Kindliness When I Awaken -- But There's Always Some Finger Pointing, Telling Me Some Terrible Deed I Committed During The Night. It Seems I Make A Lot Of Mistakes And It Seems That I Am Not Allowed Any.

I Took No Pride In My Solitude; But I Was Dependent On It. The Darkness Of The Room Was Like Sunlight To Me.

The Night Kept Coming On In And There Was Nothing I Could Do.

When A Writer Is Swayed With His Fame And His Fortune, You Can Float Him Down The River With The Turds.

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.

Love Is A Form Of Prejudice. I Have Too Many Other Prejudices.

The Beautiful Are Found In The Edge Of A Room Crumpled Into Spiders And Needles And Silence And We Can Never Understand Why They Left,they Were So Beautiful. They Dont Make It, The Beautiful Die Young And Leave The Ugly To Their Ugly Lives.

Life Itself Is Not The Miracle. That Pain Should Be So Constant, That's The Miracle -

I Dunno," I Said, "but I Have An Idea That People Who Don't Think Too Much Tend To Look Younger Longer

When The Phone Rings I Too Would Like To Hear Words That Might Ease Some Of This.

The Crazy Ones Only Laugh When There Is No Reason To Laugh.

Courts Are Places Where The Ending Is Written First And All That Precedes Is Simply Vaudeville.

The Masses Are Always Wrong...wisdom Is Doing Everything The Crowd Does Not Do. All You Do Is Reverse The Totality Of Their Learning And You Have The Heaven They're Looking For.

I'm Going To Open Another Vottle. Not A Vottle, But A Bottle. You Open It And I'll Drink It. And You Try To Write As Much As I Did Without Falling Off Of Your Chair.

Don't Wait For The Good Woman. She Doesn't Exist. There Are Women Who Can Make You Feel More With Their Bodies And Their Souls But These Are The Exact Women Who Will Turn The Knife Into You Right In Front Of The Crowd.

Love Be Damned Now As Love Was Damned When It First Arrived.

In My Next Life I Want To Be A Cat. To Sleep 20 Hours A Day And Wait To Be Fed. To Sit Around Licking My Ass.

I'm Very Clever At Hiding Poems Perhaps More Clever Than I Am At Writing Them.

How Are His Poems?" "he's Not As Good As He Thinks He Is, But Then Most Of Us Feel That Way.

The Human Race Had Always Disgusted Me. Essentially, What Made Them Disgusting Was The Family-relationship Illness, Which Included Marriage, Exchange Of Power And Aid, Which Neighborhood, Your District, Your City, Your County, Your State, Your Nation-everybody Grabbing Each Other's Assholes In The Honeycomb Of Survival Out Of A Fear-animalistic Stupidity.

I Was Their Bar Freak, They Needed Me To Make Themselves Feel Better. Just Like, At Times, I Needed That Graveyard.

First Paycheck I Get, I Thought, I'm Going To Get Myself A Room Near The Downtown L.a. Public Library.

Too Often, The Only Escape Is Sleep

I Have A Face Like A Washrag. I Sing Love Songs And Carry Steel. I Would Rather Die Than Cry. I Can't Stand Hounds Can't Live Without Them. I Hang My Head Against The White Refrigerator And Want To Scream Like The Last Weeping Of Life Forever But I Am Bigger Than The Mountains.

I Am A Dolt Of A Man, Easily Made Happy Or Even Stupidly Happy Almost Without Cause And Left Alone I Am Mostly Content.

The Artist," An Ancient Sage Had Once Said, "is Always Sitting On The Doorsteps Of The Rich.

It Seems I Make A Lot Of Mistakes And It Seems That I Am Not Allowed Any.

I Didn't Like Anybody In That School. I Think They Knew That. I Think That's Why They Disliked Me. I Didn't Like The Way They Walked Or Looked Or Talked, But I Didn't Like My Mother Or Father Either. I Still Had The Feeling Of Being Surrounded By White Empty Space. There Was Always A Slight Nausea In My Stomach.

Drinking Is An Emotional Thing. It Joggles You Out Of The Standardism Of Everyday Life, Out Of Everything Being The Same.

If You Can Only Remain Pure In Your Stupidity, Someday You May Get A Phone Call From Hell.

Knowledge Is Knowing As Little As Possible.

Knowing Who You Are

What's Genius? I Don't Know But I Do Know That The Difference Between A Madman And A Professional Is That A Pro Does As Well As He Can Within What He Has Set Out To Do And A Madman Does Exceptionally Well At What He Can't Help Doing.

I Could See The Road Ahead Of Me. I Was Poor And I Was Going To Stay Poor. But I Didn't Particularly Want Money. I Didn't Know What I Wanted. Yes, I Did. I Wanted Someplace To Hide Out, Someplace Where One Didn't Have To Do Anything. The Thought Of Being Something Didn't Only Appall Me, It Sickened Me . . . To Do Things, To Be Part Of Family Picnics, Christmas, The 4th Of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day . . . Was A Man Born Just To Endure Those Things And Then Die? I Would Rather Be A Dishwasher, Return Alone To A Tiny Room And Drink Myself To Sleep.

News Travels Fast In Places Where Nothing Much Ever Happens.

I Had Noticed That Both In The Very Poor And Very Rich Extremes Of Society The Mad Were Often Allowed To Mingle Freely.

If You Want To Create, You'll Create.

There's A Bluebird In My Heart That Wants To Get Out.

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

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.

Well, The Rain Had Stopped But The Pain Was Still There.

I Wasn’t Lonely. I Experienced No Self-pity. I Was Just Caught Up In A Life In Which I Could ﬁnd No Meaning.

And Even The Trees We Walked Under Seemed Less Than Trees And More Like Everything Else.

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.

I Remembered My New Orleans Days, Living On Two Five-cent Candy Bars A Day For Weeks At A Time In Order To Have Leisure To Write. But Starvation, Unfortunately, Didn't Improve Art. It Only Hindered It. A Man's Soul Was Rooted In His Stomach. A Man Could Write Much Better After Eating A Porterhouse Steak And Drinking A Pint Of Whiskey Than He Could Ever Write After Eating A Nickel Candy Bar. The Myth Of The Starving Artist Was A Hoax.

I Kept Telling Myself That All The Women In The World Weren´t Whores, Just Mine.

Death Is Nothing, Brother, It's Life That's Hard

I Was Fighting A Small Fight Of My Own Which Wasn't Leading Anywhere-but Like A Man With A Bent Spoon Trying To Dig Through A Cement Wall I Knew That A Small Fight Was Better Than Quitting: It Kept The Heart Alive.

The Pest, In A Sense, Is A Very Superior Being To Us: He Knows Where To Find Us And How--usually In The Bath Or In Sexual Intercourse Or Asleep.

You Are Yesterday's Bouquet So Sadly Raided

The Impossibility Of Being Human All Too Human This Breathing In And Out Out And In These Punks These Cowards These Champions These Mad Dogs Of Glory Moving This Little Bit Of Light Toward Us Impossibly.

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

Wherever The Crowd Goes Run In The Other Direction. They're Always Wrong.

They, All Of Them, Seemed To Put Literary Form In Front Of The Actuality And Living Of Life Itself.

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Sandra Bernhard

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