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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.

-Charles Bukowski

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People Were Interesting At

Charles Bukowski

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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.

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

Understand Me. I’m Not Like An Ordinary World. I Have My Madness, I Live In Another Dimension And I Do Not Have Time For Things That Have No Soul.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Find What You Love And Let It Kill You. For All Things Will Kill You, Both Slowly And Fastly, But It’s Much Better To Be Killed By A Lover.

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

He Asked, "what Makes A Man A Writer?" "well," I Said, "it's Simple. You Either Get It Down On Paper, Or Jump Off A Bridge.

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.

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.

We Do Not Abandon Ship. I Say, As Corny As It May Sound, Through The Strength And Spirit And Fire And Dare And Gamble Of A Few Men In A Few Ways We Can Save The Carcass Of Humanity From Drowning. No Light Goes Out Until It Goes Out. Let's Fight As Men, Not Rats. Period. No Further Addition.

I Would Certainly End Up Forever Crying The Blues Into A Coffee Cup In A Park For Old Men Playing Chess Or Silly Games Of Some Sort.

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.

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 Heard An Airplane Passing Overhead. I Wished I Was On It.

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 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.

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

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

My Ambition Is Handicapped By Laziness

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

To Create Art Means To Be Crazy Alone Forever.

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

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

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

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

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

There Is No Hurry. Time Means Nothing To You.

What's Wrong With Assholes, Baby?

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.

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.

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.

Poetry Is What Happens When Nothing Else Can.

And It Seems People Should Not Build Houses Anymore It Seems People Should Stop Working And Sit In Small Rooms On Second Floors Under Electric Lights Without Shades; It Seems There Is A Lot To Forget And A Lot Not To Do And In Drugstores, Markets, Bars, The People Are Tired, They Do Not Want To Move, And I Stand There At Night And Look Through This House And The House Does Not Want To Be Built

Sometimes I Hate You," She Said.

And Our Few Good Times Will Be Rare Because We Have The Critical Sense And Are Not Easy To Fool With Laughter

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

Sexual Intercourse Is Kicking Death In The Ass While Singing.

I Felt Like Crying But Nothing Came Out. It Was Just A Sort Of Sad Sickness, Sick Sad, When You Can't Feel Any Worse. I Think You Know It. I Think Everybody Knows It Now And Then. But I Think I Have Known It Pretty Often, Too Often.

There Are Policemen In The Street And Angels In The Clouds

Don't Ever Write A Novel Unless It Hurts Like A Hot Turd Coming Out.

We Don’t Even Ask Happiness, Just A Little Less Pain.

You Are Yesterday's Bouquet So Sadly Raided

Finally There Is Nothing Here For Death To Take Away.

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?

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

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

Why Do You Insist Upon Destroying Yourself?

Destroying Yourself

You Don't Go On "probably" When Love And Guns Are In Hand.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 Knew It Would Be You

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

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

It Was Too Much. The Comfortable People Made Comfortable Jokes About Weather And Things But I Sat Mostly Silent Saying A Word Or So When Necessary A Word Or So Trying To Hide From Them The Fact That I Was A Fool And Feeling Terrible And I Was Numb, Numb Again, Numb Again Again And Again, Numbness And Pain Swelling In Me.

Places To Hunt Places To Hide Are Getting Harder To Find, And Pet Canaries And Goldfish Too, Did You Notice That?

People Don't Do Me Much Good.

The Sea Is Made Of Blood

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.

You Fall Into The Mirror, Come Through The Other Side Staring At A Lightbulb.

You Have My Soul And I Have Your Money

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

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.

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

I Should Think That Many Of Our Poets, The Honest Ones, Will Confess To Having No Manifesto. It Is A Painful Confession But The Art Of Poetry Carries Its Own Powers Without Having To Break Them Down Into Critical Listings. I Do Not Mean That Poetry Should Be Raffish And Irresponsible Clown Tossing Off Words Into The Void. But The Very Feeling Of A Good Poem Carries Its Own Reason For Being... Art Is Its Own Excuse, And It’s Either Art Or It’s Something Else. It’s Either A Poem Or A Piece Of Cheese.

My Objection To War Was Not That I Had To Kill Somebody Or Be Killed Senselessly, That Hardly Mattered. What I Objected To Was To Be Denied The Right To Sit In A Small Room And Starve And Drink Cheap Wine And Go Crazy In My Own Way And At My Own Leisure.

Learn, He Says, That There Will Be Hours, Days And Months Ahead Of Feeling Absolutely Terrible And Nothing Can Change That; Neither New Girlfriends, Health Professionals, Changes Of Diet, Dope, Humility, Or God.

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

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.

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

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

I Often Carry Things To Read So That I Will Not Have To Look At The People.

It Is Good To Be Sitting Some Place In Public At 2:30 In The Afternoon Without Getting The Flesh Ripped From Your Bones.

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.

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

Human Experience

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.

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

Find What You Love And Let It Kill You.

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.

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

She Is No Longer The Beautiful Woman She Was. She Sends Photos Of Herself Sitting Upon A Rock By The Ocean Alone And Damned. I Could Have Had Her Once. I Wonder If She Thinks I Could Have Saved Her?

There's No Chance At All: We Are All Trapped By A Singular Fate.

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.

There Are Times When Those Eyes Inside Your Brain Stare Back At You.

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

And When Love Came To Us Twice And Lied To Us Twice We Decided To Never Love Again That Was Fair Fair To Us And Fair To Love Itself. We Ask For No Mercy Or No Miracles; We Are Strong Enough To Live And To Die And To Kill Flies, Attend The Boxing Matches, Go To The Racetrack, Live On Luck And Skill, Get Alone, Get Alone Often, And If You Can't Sleep Alone Be Careful Of The Words You Speak In Your Sleep; And Ask For No Mercy No Miracles; And Don't Forget: Time Is Meant To Be Wasted, Love Fails And Death Is Useless.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

Courage To Love

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.

There's Nothing To Stop A Man From Writing Unless That Man Stops Himself. If A Man Truly Desires To Write, Then He Will. Rejection And Ridicule Will Only Strengthen Him. And The Longer He Is Held Back The Stronger He Will Become, Like A Mass Of Rising Water Against A Dam. There Is No Losing In Writing, It Will Make Your Toes Laugh As You Sleep, It Will Make You Stride Like A Tiger, It Will Fire The Eye And Put You Face To Face With Death. You Will Die A Fighter, You Will Be Honored In Hell. The Luck Of The Word. Go With It, Send It.

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.

I Can Almost Understand Why People Leap From Bridges.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 Was Nothing Glorious About The Life Of A Drinker Or The Life Of A Writer.

God Is A Lonely Place Without Steak.

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

But Isn't There Always One Good Thing To Look Back On? Think Of How Many Cups Of Coffee We Drank Together.

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

Some Nights I Knew That If I Slept I Would Die.

My Part Of The Game Is That I Must Live The Best I Can.

I Have Been Treated Better Than I Should Have Been---not By Life In General Nor By The Machinery Of Things But By Women.

The Blankets Had Fallen Off And I Stared Down At Her White Back, The Shoulder Blades Sticking Out As If They Wanted To Grow Into Wings, Poke Through That Skin. Little Blades. She Was Helpless.

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

Before My Death I Hope To Obtain My Life.

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

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

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

Humanity, You Never Had It To Begin With.

The Secret Is Writing Down One Simple Line After Another.

There's Nothing Like Privacy. You Know, I Like People. It's Nice That They Might Like My Books And All That...but I'm Not The Book, See? I'm The Guy Who Wrote It, But I Don't Want Them To Come Up And Throw Roses On Me Or Anything. I Want Them To Let Me Breathe.

The Last Cigarettes Are Smoked, The Loaves Are Sliced, And Lest This Be Taken For Wry Sorrow, Drown The Spider In Wine. You Are Much More Than Simply Dead: I Am A Dish For Your Ashes, I Am A Fist For Your Vanished Air. The Most Terrible Thing About Life Is Finding It Gone.

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.

The Years Have Gone By Quickly. Death Sits In The Seat Next To Me. We Make A Lovely Couple.

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

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

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

Thought Provoking

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

That Was The Trouble With Being A Writer, That Was The Main Trouble—leisure Time, Excessive Leisure Time. You Had To Wait Around For The Buildup Until You Could Write And While You Were Waiting You Went Crazy, And While You Were Going Crazy You Drank And The More You Drank The Crazier You Got.

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

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

Capitalism Has Survived Communism. Now, It Eats Away At Itself.

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

I Am A Poem. There Is No Way Out.

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.

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

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

It Was Like A Church In There As Only The Truly Lost Sit In Bars On Tuesday Mornings At 8:00 A.m.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Read My Books At Night, Like That, Under The Quilt With The Overheated Reading Lamp. Reading All Those Good Lines While Suffocating. It Was Magic.

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

After Dinner Or Lunch Or Whatever It Was -- With My Crazy 12-hour Night I Was No Longer Sure What Was What -- I Said, "look, Baby, I'm Sorry, But Don't You Realize That This Job Is Driving Me Crazy? Look, Let's Give It Up. Let's Just Lay Around And Make Love And Take Walks And Talk A Little. Let's Go To The Zoo. Let's Look At Animals. Let's Drive Down And Look At The Ocean. It's Only 45 Minutes. Let's Play Games In The Arcades. Let's Go To The Races, The Art Museum, The Boxing Matches. Let's Have Friends. Let's Laugh. This Kind Of Life Like Everybody Else's Kind Of Life: It's Killing Us.

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.

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

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.

Those Who Escape Hell However Never Talk About It And Nothing Much Bothers Them After That

I Was An Agnostic. Agnostics Didn't Have Much To Argue About.

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

Basically, That's Why I Wrote: To Save My Ass, To Save My Ass From The Madhouse, From The Streets, From Myself.

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

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

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

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

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.

Bad Poetry Is Caused By People Who Sit Down And Think, Now I Am Going To Write A Poem.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Writing Is Something That You Don't Know How To Do. You Sit Down And It's Something That Happens, Or It May Not Happen. So, How Can You Teach Anybody How To Write? It's Beyond Me, Because You Yourself Don't Even Know If You're Going To Be Able To. I'm Always Worried, Well, You Know, Every Time I Go Upstairs With My Wine Bottle. Sometimes I'll Sit At That Typewriter For Fifteen Minutes, You Know. I Don't Go Up There To Write. The Typewriter's Up There. If It Doesn't Start Moving, I Say, Well This Could Be The Night That I Hit The Dust.

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

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.

Sometimes You Just Have To Pee In The Sink.

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

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

I Thought You Were Sane," I Said, "but You're Just As Crazy As The Rest Of Them.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

If You Let Them Kill You, They Will

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

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

The Free Soul Is Rare, But You Know It When You See It - Basically Because You Feel Good, Very Good, When You Are Near Or With Them.

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

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