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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.

-Charles Bukowski

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I Remembered My New

Charles Bukowski

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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.

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Women: I Liked The Colors Of Their Clothing; The Way They Walked; The Cruelty In Some Faces; Now And Then The Almost Pure Beauty In Another Face, Totally And Enchantingly Female. They Had It Over Us: They Planned Much Better And Were Better Organized. While Men Were Watching Professional Football Or Drinking Beer Or Bowling, They, The Women, Were Thinking About Us, Concentrating, Studying, Deciding - Whether To Accept Us, Discard Us, Exchange Us, Kill Us Or Whether Simply To Leave Us. In The End It Hardly Mattered; No Matter What They Did, We Ended Up Lonely And Insane.

Sexual Intercourse Is Kicking Death In The Ass While Singing.

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

I Was Born To Hustle Roses Down The Avenue Of The Dead.

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

They Simply Never Understand, Do They, That Sometimes Solitude Is One Of The Most Beautiful Things On Earth?

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Often Unbearable.

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I Hope That Death Contains Less Than This.

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.

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

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I Drive Around The Streets An Inch Away From Weeping, Ashamed Of My Sentimentality And Possible Love.

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

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

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.

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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.

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I Hid In Bars, Because I Didn't Want To Hide In Factories.

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

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If You Want To Create, You'll Create.

Complaint Is Often The Result Of An Insufficient Ability To Live Within The Obvious Restrictions Of This God Damned Cage.

The Problem Was You Had To Keep Choosing Between One Evil Or Another, And No Matter What You Chose, They Sliced A Little More Off You, Until There Was Nothing Left. At The Age Of 25 Most People Were Finished. A Whole Goddamned Nation Of Assholes Driving Automobiles, Eating, Having Babies, Doing Everything In The Worst Way Possible, Like Voting For The Presidential Candidate Who Reminded Them Most Of Themselves.

And Then There Are Some Who Believe That Old Relationships Can Be Revived And Made New Again. But Please If You Feel That Way Don't Phone Don't Write Don't Arrive

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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.

The Whole Lsd, Stp, Marijuana, Heroin, Hashish, Prescription Cough Medicine Crowd Suffers From The "watchtower" Itch: You Gotta Be With Us, Man, Or You're Out, You're Dead. This Pitch Is A Continual And Seeming Must With Those Who Use The Stuff. It's No Wonder They Keep Getting Busted.

You've Got To Know When To Let A Woman Go If You Want To Keep Her,and If You Don't Want To Keep Her You Let Her Go Anyhow So It's Always A Process Of Letting Go, One Way Or The Other.

I Have No Time For Things That Have No Soul.

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