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I Used To Lay Drunk In Alleys And I Probably Will Again.bukowski, Who Is He? I Read About Bukowski And It Doesn't Seem Like Anything To Do With Me.

-Charles Bukowski

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I Used To Lay

Charles Bukowski

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I Used To Lay Drunk In Alleys And I Probably Will Again.bukowski, Who Is He? I Read About Bukowski And It Doesn't Seem Like Anything To Do With Me.

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

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

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

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

I Think That The World Should Be Full Of Cats And Full Of Rain, That's All, Just Cats And Rain, Rain And Cats, Very Nice, Good Night.

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

Four Days Alone With Nothing. Emerge Empowered. The First Human Face You See Will Knock You Back 50%.

I Have Gotten So Used To Melancholia That I Greet It Like An Old Friend.

Human Relationships Are Strange. I Mean, You Are With One Person A While, Eating And Sleeping And Living With Them, Loving Them, Talking To Them, Going Places Together, And Then It Stops.

If You Let Them Kill You, They Will

I Have No Time For Things That Have No Soul.

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

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.

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.

I Grow Tired Of 18th Century Moralities In A 20th Century Space-atomic Age

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.

Insanity Is Relative. Who Sets The Norm?

It Was Like Any Other Relationship, There Was Jealousy On Both Sides, There Were Split-ups And Reconciliations. There Were Also Fragmented Moments Of Great Peace And Beauty. I Often Tried To Get Away From Her And She Tried To Get Away From Me But It Was Difficult: Cupid, In His Strange Way, Was Really There.

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.

Stay With The Beer. Beer Is Continuous Blood. A Continuous Lover.

The Free Soul Is Rare, But You Know It When You See It

It Will Rain All This Night And We Will Sleep Transfixed By The Dark Water As Our Blood Runs Through Our Fragile Life.

Banion Wondered Which Was Worse - Being Sodomized By Aliens, Or Having To Sit Through Two Hours Of Charles Ives.

One More Creature Dizzy With Love

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

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.

You Are Yesterday's Bouquet So Sadly Raided

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.

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

Getting Drunk Was Good. I Decided That I Would Always Like Getting Drunk. It Took Away The Obvious And Maybe If You Could Get Away From The Obvious Often Enough, You Wouldn't Become So Obvious Yourself.

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.

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?

Since Some People Had Told Me That I Was Ugly, I Always Preferred Shade To The Sun, Darkness To Light

When A Hot Woman Meets A Hermit One Of Them Is Going To Change.

I Just Want A Hot Cup Of Coffee,black,and I Don’t Want To Hear About Your Troubles.

The Psyche Has Been Burned And Left Us Senseless, The World Has Been Darker Than Lights-out In A Closet Full Of Hungry Bats, And The Whiskey And Wine Entered Our Veins When Blood Was Too Weak To Carry On

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.

Some Moments Are Nice, Some Are Nicer, Some Are Even Worth Writing About.

I Once Lay In A White Hospital For The Dying And The Dying Self, Where Some God Pissed A Rain Of Reason To Make Things Grow Only To Die, Where On My Knees I Prayed For Light, I Prayed For L*i*g*h*t, And Praying Crawled Like A Blind Slug Into The Web Where Threads Of Wind Stuck Against My Mind And I Died Of Pity For Man, For Myself, On A Cross Without Nails, Watching In Fear As The Pig Belches In His Sty, Farts, Blinks And Eats.

I Like The Way Mahler Wandered About In His Music And Still Retained His Passion. He Must Have Looked Like An Earthquake Walking Down The Street.

That Moment - To This ... May Be Years In The Way They Measure, But It's Only One Sentence Back In My Mind - There Are So Many Days When Living Stops And Pulls Up And Sits And Waits Like A Train On The Rails. I Pass The Hotel At 8 And At 5; There Are Cats In The Alleys And Bottles And Bums, And I Look Up At The Window And Think, I No Longer Know Where You Are, And I Walk On And Wonder Where The Living Goes When It Stops.

A Yet Women -good Women- Frightened Me Because They Eventually Wanted Your Soul, And What Was Left Of Mine, I Wanted To Keep. Basically I Craved Prostitutes, Base Women, Because They Were Deadly And Hard And Made No Personal Demands. Nothing Was Lost When They Left. Yet At The Same Time I Yearned For A Gentle, Good Woman, Despite The Overwhelming Price.

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.

We Waste Days Like Mad Blackbirds And Pray For Alcoholic Nightsour Silk-sick Human Smiles Wrap Around Us Like Somebody Else's Confetti

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've Never Been Lonely. I Like Myself. I'm The Best Form Of Entertainment I Have. Let's Drink More Wine!

If There Are Junk Yards In Hell, Love Is The Dog That Guards The Gates.

I Like Women Who Haven’t Lived With Too Many Men. I Don’t Expect Virginity But I Simply Prefer Women Who Haven’t Been Rubbed Raw By Experience. There Is A Quality About Women Who Choose Men Sparingly; It Appears In Their Walk In Their Eyes In Their Laughter And In Their Gentle Hearts. Women Who Have Had Too Many Men Seem To Choose The Next One Out Of Revenge Rather Than With Feeling. 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.

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

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.

I Used To Lay Drunk In Alleys And I Probably Will Again.bukowski, Who Is He? I Read About Bukowski And It Doesn't Seem Like Anything To Do With Me.

I Give You Soul. I Give You Wisdom And Light And Music And A Bit Of Laughter. Also, I Am The World's Greatest Horseplayer.

I Have One Problem, I Don’t Hate People. They Disgust Me And I Want To Get Away From Them. I Do Not Have Hatred. I Have An Escape Mechanism.

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

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.

I Went To The Worst Of Bars Hoping To Get Killed But All I Could Do Was To Get Drunk Again.

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.

When You Clean Up A City, You Destroy It.

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.

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.

The Writer Has No Responsibility Other Than To Jack Off In Bed Alone And Write A Good Page.

I Was Young I Was So Young It Hurt Like A Knife Inside Because There Was No Alternative Except To Hide As Long As Possible--- Not In Self-pity But With Dismay At My Limited Chance: Trying To Connect.

When I'm Drinking Around People, I Tend To Get Silly Or Pugnacious Or Wild, Which Can Cause Problems.

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

I Sit Here Drunk Now. 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 Without Committing Murder Or Being Murdered; Without Having Ended Up In The Madhouse. As I Drink Alone Again Tonight My Soul Despite All The Past Agony Thanks All The Gods Who Were Not There For Me Then.

The Human Heart, As Of Course We All Know Is Essentially Good

I Do Not Like To Work And Have No Trade But I Do Like To Eat, So This Is Basic, The Basic Training Of Slaves To Fear.

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

Agony Sometimes Changes Form But It Never Ceases For Anybody.

Maybe When I Get In The Grave, Things Will Be Beautiful.

I Like To Change Liquor Stores Frequently Because The Clerks Got To Know Your Habits If You Went In Night And Day And Bought Huge Quantities. I Could Feel Them Wondering Why I Wasn't Dead Yet And It Made Me Uncomfortable. They Probably Weren't Thinking Any Such Thing, But Then A Man Gets Paranoid When He Has 300 Hangovers A Year.

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.

Dog Is Much Admired By Man Because He Believes In The Hand Which Feeds Him. A Perfect Set-up. For 13 Cents A Day You've Got A Hired Killer Who Thinks You Are God. A Dog Can't Tell A Nazi From A Republican From A Commie From A Democrat And, Many Times, Neither Can I.

..few Writers Like Other Writers' Works. The Only Time They Like Them Is When They Are Dead Or If They Have Been For A Long Time. Writers Only Like To Sniff Their Own Turds. I Am One Of Those. I Don't Even Like To Talk To Writers, Look At Them Or Worse, Listen To Them. And The Worst Is To Drink With Them, They Slobber All Over Themselves, Really Look Piteous, Look Like They Are Searching For The Wing Of The Mother. I'd Rather Think About Death Than About Other Writers. Far More Pleasant.

Why Don't We Go Back Out There And Tell Them What Happened? Because Nothing Happened Except That Everybody Has Been Driven Insane And Stupid By Life. In This Society There Are Only Two Things That Count: Don't Be Caught Without Money And Don't Get Caught High On Any Kind Of High. (night Streets Of Madness)

Your Letters Got Sadder. Your Lovers Betrayed You. Kid, I Wrote Back, All Lovers Betray. It Didn't Help. You Said You Had A Crying Bench And It Was By A Bridge And The Bridge Was Over The River And You Sat On The Crying Bench Every Night And Wept For The Lovers Who Had Hurt And Forgotten You.

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

They Say That Nothing Is Wasted: Either That Or It Al Is

We Are Like Roses That Have Never Bothered To Bloom When We Should Have Bloomed And It Is As If The Sun Has Become Disgusted With Waiting

I Knew It Would Be You

It Was Sad, It Was Sad, It Was Sad. When Betty Came Back We Didn't Sing Or Laugh, Or Even Argue. We Sat Drinking In The Dark, Smoking Cigarettes, And When We Went To Sleep, I Didn't Put My Feet On Her Body Or She On Mine Like We Used To. We Slept Without Touching. We Had Both Been Robbed.

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!

Disneyland Remains The Central Attraction Of Southern California, But The Graveyard Remains Our Reality.

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.

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

The Nine-to-five Is One Of The Greatest Atrocities Sprung Upon Mankind. You Give Your Life To A Function That Doesn't Interest You. This Situation So Repelled Me That I Was Driven To Drink, Starvation, And Mad Females, Simply As An Alternative.

Sex Can Sometimes Become The Most Horrible Of Tasks.

Never Envy A Man His Lady. Behind It All Lays A Living Hell.

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.

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.

The Masses Are Everywhere They Know How To Do Things: They Have Sane And Deadly Angers For Sane And Deadly Things.

I Can Almost Understand Why People Leap From Bridges.

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

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.

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

Long Ago, Among Other Lies They Were Taught That Silence Was Bravery.

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

Knowledge Without Follow-through Is Worse Than No Knowledge.

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

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.

Joan Of Arc Had Style. Jesus Had Style.

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.

We Use Such Big Words To Move Nowhere.

We Drove On And On, Past Little Villages And Both Good Things And Bad Things Were Happening To The People In Those Villages Too, But I Still Was Nothing But Arms And Ears And Eyes And Maybe There'd Be Either Some Good Luck For Me Or More Death Tomorrow.

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.

I Would Give Anything For A Female's Hand On Me Tonight. They Soften A Man And Then Leave Him Listening To The Rain.

2 P.m. Beer Nothing Matters But Flopping On A Mattress With Cheap Dreams And A Beer As The Leaves Die And The Horses Die And The Landladies Stare In The Halls; Brisk The Music Of Pulled Shades, A Last Man's Cave In An Eternity Of Swarm And Explosion; Nothing But The Dripping Sink, The Empty Bottle, Euphoria, Youth Fenced In, Stabbed And Shaven, Taught Words Propped Up To Die.

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.

Great Art Is Horseshit, Buy Tacos.

Love Is A Fog That Burns With The First Daylight Of Reality.

Sometimes I Hate You," She Said.

Early Evening Traffic Was Beginning To Clog The Avenue With Cars. The Sun Slanted Down Behind Him. Harry Glanced At The Drivers Of The Cars. They Seemed Unhappy. The World Was Unhappy. People Were In The Dark. People Were Terrified And Disappointed. People Were Caught In Traps. People Were Defensive And Frantic. They Felt As If Their Lives Were Being Wasted. And They Were Right.

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.

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

I Still Have A Little Whiskey Left And Therefore A Chance.

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

A Woman Is A Full Time Job. You Have To Choose Your Profession.

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.

I Held Her Wrists And Then I Got It Through The Eyes: Hatred, Centuries Deep And True. I Was Wrong And Graceless And Sick. All The Things I Had Learned Had Been Wasted. There Was No Creature Living As Foul As I And All My Poems Were False.

And Now Sometimes I'm Interviewed, They Want To Hear About Life And Literature And I Get Drunk And Hold Up My Cross-eyed, Shot, Runover De-tailed Cat And I Say,"look, Look At This!" But They Don't Understand, They Say Something Like,"you Say You've Been Influenced By Celine?" No," I Hold The Cat Up,"by What Happens, By Things Like This, By This, By This!

I Want To Let Her Know Though That All The Nights Sleeping Beside Her Even The Useless Arguments Were Things Ever Splendid And The Hard Words I Ever Feared To Say Can Now Be Said: I Love You.

The Trouble With These People Is That Their Cities Have Never Been Bombed And Their Mothers Have Never Been Told To Shut Up.

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.

Morning Night And Noon The Traffic Moves Through And The Murder And Treachery Of Friends And Lovers And All The People Move Through You. Pain Is The Joy Of Knowing The Unkindest Truth That Arrives Without Warning. Life Is Being Alone Death Is Being Alone. Even The Fools Weep Morning Night And Noon.

Everything Is Beautiful. We Have All This Beauty In The World And All We Have To Do Is Reach Out And Touch It, It Is All There And All Ours For The Taking." -- Cecilia To Henry Chinaski, Liberty Taken Changing Past Tense To Present Tense (173)

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

When You Leave Your Typewriter You Leave Your Machine Gun And The Rats Come Pouring Through.

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

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.

There Is Enough Treachery , Hatred Violence Absurdity In The Average Human Being To Supply Any Given Army On Any Given Day

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.

Never Get Out Of Bed Before Noon.

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

Our Bones Like Stems Into The Sky Will Forever Cry Victory

If You Want To Know Where God Is, Ask A Drunk.

Parties Sickened Me. I Hated The Game-playing, The Dirty Play, The Flirting, The Amateurs Drunks, The Bores.

If I'm An Ass, I Should Say So. If I Don't, Somebody Else Will. If I Say It First, That Disarms Them.

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.

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

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

The Worst Thing For A Writer Is To Know Another Writer, And Worse Than That, To Know A Number Of Other Writers. Like Flies On The Same Turd.

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

Angels, We Have Grown Apart.

Beware The Average Man The Average Woman Beware Their Love, Their Love Is Average Seeks Average But There Is Genius In Their Hatred There Is Enough Genius In Their Hatred To Kill You To Kill Anybody Not Wanting Solitude Not Understanding Solitude They Will Attempt To Destroy Anything That Differs From Their Own Not Being Able To Create Art They Will Not Understand Art They Will Consider Their Failure As Creators Only As A Failure Of The World

Things Will Be Far Worse Than They Are Now. And Far Better. I Wait.

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.

She’s Mad, But She’s Magic.

There Will Always Be Something To Ruin Our Lives, It All Depends On What Or Which Finds Us First. We Are Always Ripe And Ready To Be Taken.

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!

I Think A Man Can Keep On Drinking For Centuries, He'll Never Die; Especially Wine Or Beer...i Like Drunkards, Man, Because Drunkards, They Come Out Of It, And They're Sick And They Spring Back, They Spring Back And Forth...if I Hadn't Been A Drunkard, I Probably Would Have Committed Suicide Long Ago.

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.

I Guess We Often Get The Deep Blues, Both Of Us, And Wonder What It All Means- The People, The Buildings, The Day By Day Things, The Waste Of Time, Of Ourselves.

Can You Remember Who You Were, Before The World Told You Who You Should Be?

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.

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

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

Your Parents Don't Give You Much Love, Do They?' 'i Don't Need That Stuff,' I Told Her. 'henry, Everybody Needs Love.' 'i Don't Need Anything.' 'you Poor Boy.

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

I Am Not A Man Who Looks For Solutions In God Or Politics. If Somebody Else Wants To Do The Dirty Work And Create A Better World For Us And He Can Do It, I Will Accept It.

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

You Know The Typical Crowd, Wow, It’s Friday Night, What Are You Going To Do? Just Sit There? Well, Yeah. Because There’s Nothing Out There. It’s Stupidity. Stupid People Mingling With Stupid People. Let Them Stupidify Themselves. I’ve Never Been Bothered With The Need To Rush Out Into The Night. That’s All. Sorry For All The Millions, But I’ve Never Been Lonely. I Like Myself. I’m The Best Form Of Entertainment I Have.

Well, I Don't Know About You But I'm Going To Try Everything! War, Women, Travel, Marriage, Children, The Works. [...]. I Want To Know About Things, What Makes Them Work!

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

It Began As A Mistake.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Yes, Wagner And The Storm Intermix With The Wine As Nights Like This Run Up My Wrists And Up Into My Head And Back Down Into The Gut

I Tell You Such Fine Music Waits In The Shadows Of Hell.

I Didn't Feel That Way About It. I Had Been Playing With Death For Some Time. I Can't Say We Were The Best Of Friends But We Were Well Acquainted.

The Secret Is Writing Down One Simple Line After Another.

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

A Spark Can Set A Whole Forest On Fire. Just A Spark. Save It.

I Don't Know If This Is True To You But For Me Sometimes It Gets So Bad That Anything Else Say Like Looking At A Bird On An Overhead Power Line Seems As Great As A Beethoven Symphony. Then You Forget It And You're Back Again.

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

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

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.

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

You Have My Soul And I Have Your Money

I Didn't Like Parties.i Didn't Know How To Dance And People Frightened Me, Especially People At Parties. They Attempted To Be Sexy And Gay And Witty And Although They Hoped They Were Good At It, They Weren 't. They Were Bad At It. Their Trying So Hard Only Made It Worse.

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

Loneliness And Solitude

I Broke That Town In Half Like A Wooden Match.

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

There's A Bluebird In My Heart That Wants To Get Out But I Pour Whiskey On Him And Inhale Cigarette Smoke And The Whores And The Bartenders And The Grocery Clerks Never Know That He's In There.

Cigarette Smoke

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

God Knows I Am Not Too Hippy. Perhaps Because I Am Too Much Around The Hip And I Fear Fads For, Like Anybody Else, I Like Something That Tends To Last.

It’s When You Hide Things That You Choke On Them.

Your Writing", She Said To Me, "it's So Raw. It's Like A Sledgehammer, And Yet It Has Humor And Tenderness. . . .

As A Recluse I Couldn't Bear Traffic. It Had Nothing To Do With Jealousy, I Simply Disliked People, Crowds, Anywhere, Except At My Readings. People Diminished Me, They Sucked Me Dry.

Invent Yourself And Then Reinvent Yourself.

Reinventing Yourself

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

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.

I Write As A Function. Without It I Would Fall Ill And Die. It's As Much A Part Of One As The Liver Or Intestine, And Just About As Glamorous.

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.

I Suppose Like Others I Have Come Through Fire And Sword, Love Gone Wrong, Head-on Crashes, Drunk At Sea, And I Have Listened To The Simple Sound Of Water Running In Tubs And Wished To Drown

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