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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.

-Charles Bukowski

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I Remember When Each

Charles Bukowski

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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.

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

There Is Always One Woman To Save You From Another And As That Woman Saves You She Makes Ready To Destroy

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

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

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.

There Is No Hurry. Time Means Nothing To You.

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

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.

I Made Practice Runs Down To Skid Row To Get Ready For My Future.

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.

Success Is Always Dangerous. It Can Make An Asshole Out Of Anybody.

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.

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

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.

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?

Most People Are Not Ready For Death, Theirs Or Anybody Elses.

It Began As A Mistake.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Show Me A Man Who Lives Alone And Has A Perpetually Clean Kitchen, And 8 Times Out Of 9 I'll Show You A Man With Detestable Spiritual Qualities.

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.

Before You Kill Something Make Sure You Have Something Better To Replace It With.

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

For Each Joan Of Arc There Is A Hitler Perched At The Other End Of The Teeter-totter.

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

Humanity, You Never Had It From The Beginning." That Was My Motto.

Potential," I Said, "doesn't Mean A Thing. You've Got To Do It. Almost Every Baby In A Crib Has More Potential Than I Have.

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

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.

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.

The Less I Needed, The Better I Felt.

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.

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

Oh, I Don’t Mean You’re Handsome, Not The Way People Think Of Handsome. Your Face Seems Kind. But Your Eyes - They’re Beautiful. They’re Wild, Crazy, Like Some Animal Peering Out Of A Forest On Fire.

Love Iz A Big Fat Turkey And Every Day Iz Thanksgiving

We Are Here To Laugh At The Odds And Live Our Lives So Well That Death Will Tremble To Take Us.

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

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

You Just Rebel Against Everything. How Are You Going To Survive? I Don't Know. I'm Already Tired.

I Broke That Town In Half Like A Wooden Match.

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.

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

People Empty Me. I Have To Get Away To Refill.

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

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.

When I Am Feeling Low All I Have To Do Is Watch My Cats And My Courage Returns

All Our Days Are Marked With/ Unexpected/ Affronts--some/ Disastrous, Others/ Less So/ But The Process Is/ Wearing And/ Continuous./ Attrition Rules./ Most Give/ Way/ Leaving/ Empty Spaces/ Where People Should/ Be.

Of Course, There Would Always Be Arguments. That Is The Nature Of Woman. They Like The Mutual Exchange Of Dirty Laundry, A Bit Of Screaming, A Bit Of Dramatics. Then An Exchange Of Vows.

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.

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.

I Was A Bore And Didn't Know When To Smile Or Fake It. Or Rather Worse, I Did But Didn't.

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

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To Do A Dull Thing With Style-now That's What I Call Art.

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

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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.

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

We're All Going To Die, All Of Us, What A Circus!

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Let' Em Learn Or Let' Em Die

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Dying In A A War Never Stopped Wars From Happening.

I Am Going To Start Selling Air In Dark Orange Bags Marked: Moon-blooms

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Problem With The World Is That The Intelligent People Are Full Of Doubts, While The Stupid Ones Are Full Of Confidence.

Magic Persists Without Us No Matter What We May Do To Try To Spoil It

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

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

Style Is The Answer To Everything. A Fresh Way To Approach A Dull Or Dangerous Thing

Invent Yourself And Then Reinvent Yourself.

Reinventing Yourself

I Guess For Me Hemingway Is A Lot Like It Is For Others: He Goes Down Well When We Are Young.

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Often Unbearable.

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The Wisdom To Quit Is All We Have Left.

Humanity, You Never Had It To Begin With.

Great Books Are The Ones We Need

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The Difference Between Art And Life Is That Art Is More Bearable

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

Where Did All The Women Come From? The Supply Was Endless. Each One Of Them Was Individual, Different. Their Pussies Were Different, Their Kisses Were Different, Their Breasts Were Different, But No Man Could Drink Them All, There Were Too Many Of Them, Crossing Their Legs, Driving Men Mad. What A Feast!

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

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

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

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.

Almost Everybody Is Born A Genius And Buried An Idiot.

Thought Provoking

Do You Hate People? I Don't Hate Them...i Just Feel Better When They're Not Around.

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.

I Want So Much That Is Not Here And Do Not Know Where To Go.

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

What A Woman Wants Is A Reaction. What A Man Wants Is A Woman.

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

Hemingway And Saroyan Had The Line, The Magic Of It. The Problem Was That Hemingway Didn't Know How To Laugh And Saroyan Was Filled With Sugar.

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 Still Have A Little Whiskey Left And Therefore A Chance.

You Have To Die A Few Times Before You Can Really Live.

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

Agony Sometimes Changes Form But It Never Ceases For Anybody.

Once In A Dream I Saw A Snake Swallowing Its Own Tail, It Swallowed And Swallowed Until It Got Halfway Round, And There It Stopped And There It Stayed, It Was Stuffed With Its Own Self. Some Fix, That. We Only Have Ourselves To Go On, And It's Enough.

You Are On The Freeway Threading Through Traffic Now, Moving Both Towards Something And Towards Nothing At All As You Punch The Radio On And Get Mozart, Which Is Something, And You Will Somehow Get Through The Slow Days And The Busy Days And The Dull Days And The Hateful Days And The Rare Days, All Both So Delightful And So Disappointing Because We Are All So Alike And So Different.

It’s Never Quite Right, All The Things We Are Taught, All The Loves We Chase, All The Deaths We Die, All The Lives We Live.

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

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

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.

I Went Over To See Marina Two Or Three Or Four Times A Week. I Knew As Long As I Could See The Girl I Would Be All Right…. Soon After, I Got A Letter From Fay. She And The Child Were Living In A Hippie Commune In New Mexico. It Was A Nice Place, She Said. Marina Would Be Able To Breathe There. She Enclosed A Little Drawing The Girl Had Made For Me.

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

I Have Two Rules. One Is, Never Trust A Man Who Smokes A Pipe. The Other Is, Never Trust A Man With Shiny Shoes.

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

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.

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

Dying Should Come Easy: Like A Freight Train You Don't Hear When Your Back Is Turned.

I Am Ashamed To Be A Member Of The Human Race But I Don't Want To Add Any More To That Shame, I Want To Scrape A Little Of It Off.

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.

Anybody Can Be A Non-drunk. It Takes A Special Talent To Be A Drunk. It Takes Endurance. Endurance Is More Important Than Truth.

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

When I Was A Boy I Used To Dream Of Becoming The Village Idiot. I Used To Lie In Bed And Imagine Myself The Happy Idiot Able To Get Food Easily ...and Easy Sympathy, A Planned Confusion Of Not Too Much Love Or Effort. Some Would Claim That I Have Succeeded.

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

Do Some Living And Get Yourself A Typewriter.

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

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.

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.

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

The People Are The Biggest Horror Show On Earth, Have Been For Centuries.

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.

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

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.

Goodness Can Be Found Sometimes In The Middle Of Hell.

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

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

If You Think They Didn't Go Crazy In Tiny Rooms Just Like You're Doing Now Without Women Without Food Without Hope Then You're Not Ready.

And Getting Dressed We Talk About What Else There Might Be To Do, But Being Together Solves Most Of It, In Fact, Solves All Of It

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 Could Scream Down 90 Mountains To Less Than Dust If Only One Living Human Had Eyes In The Head And Heart In The Body, But There Is No Chance, My God, No Chance. Rat With Rat Dog With Dog Hog With Hog, Play The Piano Drunk Listen To The Drunk Piano, Realize The Myth Of Mercy Stand Still As Even A Child's Voice Snarls And We Have Not Been Fooled, It Was Only That We Wanted To Believe.

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

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

What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire

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.

You've Got To Burn Straight Up And Down And Then Maybe Sidewise For A While And Have Your Guts Scrambled By A Bully And The Demonic Ladies, You've Got To Run Along The Edge Of Madness Teetering, You've Got To Starve Like A Winter Alleycat, You've Go To Live With The Imbecility Of At Least A Dozen Cities, Then Maybe Maybe Maybe You Might Know Where You Are For A Tiny Blinking Moment.

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.

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.

I Went To The Bathroom And Threw Some Water On My Face, Combed My Hair. If I Could Only Comb That Face, I Thought, But I Can't.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

What Good Are You? What Can You Do? It Has Cost Me A Thousands Of Dollars To Raise You, Feed You, Clothe You! Suppose I Left You Here On The Street? Then What Would You Do?" "catch Butterflies

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 Got Up And Walked Back To My Roominghouse. The Moonlight Was Bright. My Footsteps Echoed In The Empty Street And It Sounded As If Somebody Was Following Me, I Looked Around. I Was Mistaken. I Was Quite Alone.

She’s Mad, But She’s Magic.

People Were Interesting At First. Then Later, Slowly But Surely, All The Flaws And Madness Would Manifest Themselves. I Would Become Less And Less To Them; They Would Mean Less And Less To Me.

My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees Of The World.

Are People Crazy? People Waited All Their Lives. They Waited To Live, They Waited To Die. They Waited In Line To Buy Toilet Paper. They Waited In Line For Money. And If They Didn't Have Any Money They Waited In Longer Lines. You Waited To Go To Sleep And Then You Waited To Awaken. You Waited To Get Married And You Waited To Get Divorced. You Waited For It To Rain, You Waited For It To Stop. You Waited To Eat And Then You Waited To Eat Again. You Waited In A Shrink's Office With A Bunch Of Psychos And You Wondered If You Were One.

The Writing's Easy, It's The Living That Is Sometimes Difficult.

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?

There Are Policemen In The Street And Angels In The Clouds

Before My Death I Hope To Obtain My Life.

Don’t Do It. Don’t Love 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.

That's The Problem With Drinking, I Thought, As I Poured Myself A Drink. If Something Bad Happens You Drink In An Attempt To Forget; If Something Good Happens You Drink In Order To Celebrate; And If Nothing Happens You Drink To Make Something Happen.

Never Bring A Lot Of Money To Where A Poor Man Lives. He Can Only Lose What Little He Has. On The Other Hand It Is Mathematically Possible That He Might Win Whatever You Bring With You. What You Must Do, With Money And The Poor, Is Never Let Them Get Too Close To One Another.

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.

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.

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

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

You Have My Soul And I Have Your Money

T Was Almost Disappointing Because It Seemed When Stress And Madness Were Eliminated From My Daily Life There Wasn't Much Left You Could Depend On.

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.

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

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.

I Wasn’t Going Anywhere And Neither Was The Rest Of The World. We Were All Just Hanging Around Waiting To Die And Meanwhile Doing Little Things To Fill The Space. Some Of Use Weren’t Even Doing Little Things. We Were Vegetables.

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.

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.

Dogs And Angels Are Not Very Far Apart

I Have Seen Too Many Men Wilt And Go Silly Under A Little Light, And Then They Continue To Write And Get Published, Turning Out Pure Crap Under A Name That Has Become A Bad Habit. The Next Poem Is All That Counts. You Can't Stand On Past Poems.

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

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

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William H. Gass

James A. Michener

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