Charles Bukowski

The Crossing Guard , directed by Sean Penn , concludes with a dedication to "My friend, Charles Bukowski. I miss you, S.P.".

His only child, Marina Bukowski was born in 1964 and is the product of his liaison with the poet Frances Smith, who wrote under the name FrancEyE.

According to Jim Christys "The BUK Book: Musings on Charles Bukowski," when Bukowski made his first trip to Canada in October 1976, organizers for his Western Front reading in Vancouver, British Columbia were surprised that the men in the audience were far outnumbered by women. Bukowski, who was physically unprepossessing due to the acne scars on his face and his generous potbelly, proved to be catnip to women. According to reading organizer Ted Laturnus, at a post reading party, Bukowski "was besieged with offers of congress." No matter where Bukowski went during in Vancouver, he "had to fight the women off." Bukowski wrote about the Vancouver reading in his 1978 novel "Women."

Bukowski was arrested for draft evasion and jailed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 22, 1944. He was released when the FBI determined it was his uncle John that they were looking for. Bukowski had been rated 4-F by the Los Angeles draft board for being psychologically unfit.

Bukowski was arrested for being drunk in public by the Los Angeles Police Department on May 14, 1948, December 17, 1962, and on August 12, 1963. The fear of being tossed in the L.A.P.D.s drunk tank features in his writing.

His body is interred at Green Hills Memorial Park, Los Angeles, California

Was a cat fancier. One of his finest poems, "The Mockingbird," is about a cat dispatching a bird.

Loved to listen to classical music on the radio as he wrote (and drank).

Headstone reads "Dont Try"

His widow, Linda Lee Bukowski , donated his papers to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, near Pasadena. Linda Bukowski chose the genteel Huntington, which contains a Gutenberg Bible, as she frequently visits the library. "Its going to be scandalous. This would tickle my husband. It would crack him up," Linda Lee Bukowski said of her donation, which was worth as much as $1 million. The collection of more than a thousand items includes a typed draft of his novel "Ham on Rye" with handwritten corrections, his screenplay for the 1987 autobiographical movie Barfly , his first poetry journals from the 1940s, and scratch forms from horse races at Santa Anita Park.

Once called the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Cline s "Journey to the End of the Night" the greatest book ever written.

His literary influences included the Roman poet Catullus, the Louis-Ferdinand Cline , Fyodor Dostoevsky , John Fante , Conrad Aiken, Sherwood Anderson, Knut Hamsun , Ernest Hemingway , Robinson Jeffers, Ezra Pound and James Thurber.

His favorite movie was Eraserhead , though he disliked director David Lynch after he met him, thinking that he and his wife Isabella Rossellini , put on airs of superiority around him. Although Bukowski often claimed he hadnt seen any movie since The Lost Weekend until he got involved in making Barfly , other films he said he liked were One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest , Lynchs The Elephant Man , Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) .

His first novel The Post Office was published when he was 51 years old.

Suffered from dyslexia as a youth.

Began writing again in 1955, after surviving an almost fatal bleeding ulcer.

He had two stories published by the time he was 24 but gave up writing shortly afterwards to work in the post office. He did not write again for ten years and did not become a full-time professional until he was 49 years old.

U2 s singer Bono on Bukowski: "He had no time for metaphors.".

I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church,state, and educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here,to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so,well that death will tremble to take us.

My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains. For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover. ~ Falsely yours,Find what you love and let it kill you.

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.

some moments are nice, some arenicer, some are even worthwritingabout.

I drive around the streetsan inch away from weeping,ashamed of my sentimentality andpossible love.

If I never see you again I will always carry youinsideoutsideon my fingertipsand at brain edgesand in centerscentersof what I am ofwhat remains.

It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.

Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thingTo do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without itTo do a dangerous thing with style is what I call artBullfighting can be an artBoxing can be an artLoving can be an artOpening a can of sardines can be an artNot many have styleNot many can keep styleI have seen dogs with more style than men,although not many dogs have style. Cats have it with abundance. When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,that was style. Or sometimes people give you styleJoan of Arc had styleJohn the BaptistJesusSocratesCaesarGarcía Lorca. I have met men in jail with style. I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail. Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done. Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.

I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid. I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.

The Laughing Heartyour life is your lifedon’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light butit beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death butyou can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it,the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelousthe gods wait to delightin you.

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.

having nothing to struggleagainstthey have nothing to strugglefor.

there is a place in the heart thatwill never be filleda spaceand even during thebest momentsandthe greatest timestimeswe will know itwe will know itmore thaneverthere is a place in the heart thatwill never be filledandwe will waitandwaitin that space.

It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun,The nights you fight best arewhen all the weapons are pointed at you,when all the voices hurl their insultswhile the dream is being strangled. The nights you fight best arewhen reason gets kicked in the gut,when the chariots of gloom encircle you. The nights you fight best arewhen the laughter of fools fills the air,when the kiss of death is mistaken for love. The nights you fight best arewhen the game is fixed,when the crowd screams for your blood. The nights you fight best areon a night like thisas you chase a thousand dark rats from your brain,as you rise up against the impossible,as you become a brother to the tender sister of joyand move on regardless.

be it peace or happinesslet it enfold you,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.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.

What is your advice to young writers?” “Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.

the gods play nofavorites.

the gods seldomgivebut so quicklytake.

We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.

and our few good times will be rare because we have the critical senseand are not easy to fool with laughter,(the whole world is at thethroat of the world,everybody feels angry,short-changed, cheated,everybody is despondent,disillusioned. )I welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards ofhappiness.

That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man.

You could sit in there all day drinking coffee and they never asked you to leave no matter how bad you looked. They just asked the bums not to bring their wine and drink it there. Places like that gave you hope when there wasn´t much hope.

in this land some of us fuck more than we die but most of us die better than we fuck,Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.

as long as there arehuman beings aboutthere is never going to beany peacefor any individualupon this earth (oranywhere elsethey mightescape to). all you can dois maybe grabten lucky minuteshereor maybe an hourthere. somethingis working toward youright now, andI mean youand nobody butyou.

shot in the eyeshot in the brainshot in the assshot like a flower in the danceamazing how death wins hands downamazing how much credence is given to idiot forms oflifeamazing how laughter has been drowned outamazing how viciousness is such a constantI must soon declare my own war on their warI must hold to my last piece of groundI must protect the small space I have made that hasallowed me lifemy life not their deathmy death not their deaththis place, this time, nowI vow to the sunthat I will laugh the good laugh once againin the perfect place of meforever. their death not my life.

the best part waspulling down theshadesstuffing the doorbellwith ragsputting the phonein therefrigeratorand going to bedfor 3 or 4days. and the next bestpartwasnobody evermissedme.

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.

when I am feelinglowall i have to do iswatch my catsand mycouragereturns,sometimes when everything seems atits worstwhen all conspiresand gnawsand the hours, days, weeksyearsseem wasted – stretched there upon my bedin the darklooking upward at the ceilingi get what many will consider anobnoxious thought:it’s still nice to beBukowski.

I do think that poetry is important though, if you don’t strive at it, if you don’t fill it full of stars and falseness.

And then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw.

Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.

we must bringour own lightto thedarkness.

I wait on my fix:I am a poetry junkie.

Jag föddes för att kränga rosor på de dödas avenyer,crawled like a blind slug into the web,great writers are indecent peoplethey live unfairlysaving the best part for paper. good human beings save the worldso that bastards like me can keep creating art,become immortal. if you read this after I am deadit means I made it.

nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing.

There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streetswhen you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.

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.

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.

If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.

Mëso të mos e shkatërrosh me fjalë atë çfarë ke ndërtuar me heshtje.

Goodness could be found sometimes in the middle of hell.

the tired sunsets and the tired people - it takes a lifetime to die and no time at all.

a life can change in a tenth ofa second. or sometimes it can take70years.

I often carry things to read so that I will not have to look at the people.

I am too sick to lay downthe sidewalks frighten methe whole damned city frightens me,what I will becomewhat I have becomefrightens me.

There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure ad moving on. Yet most people are stricken wth fear. They fear failure so much that they fail.

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.

I was alone with myself. And disgusting as I was it was better than being with somebody else, anybody else, all of them out there doing their pitiful little tricks and handsprings.

I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance.

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!,There were no judgments to be made, yet out of necessity one had to select. Beyond good and evil was all right in theory, but to go on living one had to select: some were kinder than others, some were simply more interested in you, and sometimes the outwardly beautiful and inwardly cold were necessary. The kinder ones fucked better, really, and after you were around them a while they seemed beautiful because they were.

if you are going to try, go all the way. . Otherwise, don’t even start. . If you are going to try, go all the way. . This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. Go all the way. . It could mean not eating for three or four days. . It could mean freezing on a park bench. . It could mean jail, derision, mockery, isolation. . Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test for endurance, of how much you really want to do it. . And you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. . if you are going to try, go all the way. . there’s no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire. Do it, do it , do it. . all the way . . all the way. . You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is ….

I began to feel like a kept man and it felt great.

you boys can keep your virgins give me hot old women in high heels with asses that forgot to get old.

there is always one woman to save you from another and as that woman saves you she makes ready to destroy,What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.

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 time came to put Iris Duarte back on the plane. It was a morning flight which made it difficult. I wasused to rising at noon; it was a fine cure for hangoversand would add 5 years to my life. I felt no sadnesswhile driving her to L. A. International. The sex hadbeen fine; there had been laughter. I could hardlyremember a more civilized time, neither of us makingany demands, yet there had been warmth, it had notbeen without feeling, dead meat coupled with deadmeat. I detested that type of swinging, the LosAngeles, Hollywood, Bel Air, Malibu, Laguna Beachkind of sex. Strangers when you meet, strangers whenyou part—a gymnasium of bodies namelesslymasturbating each other. People with no morals oftenconsidered themselves more free, but mostly theylacked the ability to feel or to love. So they becameswingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was nogamble or humor in their game—it was corpsefucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they weregrounded on human experience down through thecenturies. Some morals tended to keep peopleslaves in factories, in churches and true to the State. Other morals simply made good sense. It was like agarden filled with poisoned fruit and good fruit. Youhad to know which to pick and eat, which to leavealone.

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.

You women have more holes than swiss cheese.

good weatheris likegood women—it doesn’t always happenand when it doesit doesn’talways last.

Education was the new god, and educated men the new plantation masters.

the way to create art is to burn and destroyordinary concepts and to substitute themwith new truths that run down from the top of the headand out of the heart,if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you,do something else.

unless it comes out ofyour soul like a rocket,unless being still woulddrive you to madness orsuicide or murder,don’t do it. unless the sun inside you isburning your gut,don’t do it. when it is truly time,and if you have been chosen,it will do it byitself and it will keep on doing ituntil you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.

I sat back down and poured a glass of wine. I left my door open. The moonlight came in with the sounds of the city: juke boxes, automobiles, curses, dogs barking, radios We were all in it together. We were all in one big shit pot together. There was no escape. We were all going to be flushed away.

The total ugliness and indifference of the worst features of the human race come out in their driving habits.

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.

Ya got cigarettes?” she asks. “Yes,” I say,“I got cigarettes. ” “Matches?” she asks. “Enough to burn Rome. ” “Whiskey?”“Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River of pain. ” “You drunk?” “Not yet.

I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.

The good times were over. Nobody gave a shit and nobody had any money and if they had any, they kept it.

unaccountably we are aloneforever aloneand it was meant to bethat way,it was never meantto be any other way–and when the death strugglebeginsthe last thing I wish to seeisa ring of human faceshovering over me–better just my old friends,the walls of my self,let only them be there. I have been alone but seldomlonely. I have satisfied my thirstat the wellof my selfand that wine was good,the best I ever had,and tonightsittingstaring into the darkI now finally understandthe dark and thelight and everythingin between. peace of mind and heartarriveswhen we accept whatis:having beenborn into thisstrange lifewe must acceptthe wasted gamble of ourdaysand take some satisfaction inthe pleasure ofleaving it allbehind. cry not for me. grieve not for me. readwhat I’ve writtenthenforget itall. drink from the wellof your selfand beginagain. Mind and Heart,all theorieslike clichesshot to hell,all these small faceslooking upbeautiful and believing;I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid. I wish to believe but believe is agraveyard. we have narrowed it down tothe butcherknife and themockingbird wish usluck.

all people start tocome apart finallyand there it is:just empty ashtrays in a roomor wisps of hair on a combin the dissolving moonlight.

the courage it took to get out of bed eachmorningto face the same thingsover and overwasenormous.

if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it. unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don’t do it.

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.

Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.

jan was an excellent fuck. . . she had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that was killing her.

Strangers when you meet, strangers when you part -a gymnasium of bodies namelessly masturbating each other. People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or to love. So they became swingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was no gamble or humor in their game -it was corpse fucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience down through the centuries. Some morals tended to keep people slaves in factories, in churches and true to the State. Other morals simply made good sense. It was like a garden filled with poisoned fruit and good fruit. You had to know which to pick and eat, which to leave alone.

To think, somebody had suicided for that.

She would have been a better fuck in Greece, maybe. America was a shitty place to fuck.

You bitch," I whispered, "I love you. " Then I came.

I write fiction""What’s fiction?""Fiction is an improvement on life.

I guess I´m too used to sitting in a small room and making words do a few things. I see enough of humanity at the racetracks, the supermarkets, gas stations, freeways, cafes, etc. This can´t be helped. But I feel like kicking myself in the ass when I go to gatherings, even if the drinks are free. It never works for me. I´ve got enough clay to play with. People empty me. I have to get away to refill. I´m what´s best for me, sitting here slouched, smoking a beedie and watching this creen flash the words. Seldom do you meet a rare or interesting person. It´s more than galling, it´s a fucking constant shock. It´s making a god-damned grouch out of me. Anybody can be a god-damned grouch and most are. Help!,The old gal was only another lonely creature in a world that didn’t care,it does seemthe more we drinkthe better the wordsgo.

the price of creationis nevertoo high. the price of livingwith other peoplealwaysis.

the world is better withoutthem. only the plants and the animals aretrue comrades. I drink to them and withthem.

there are so many dayswhen living stops and pulls up and sitsand waits like a train on the rails.

Life wore a man out, wore a man thin. Tomorrow would be a better day.

Without literature, life is hell.

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D. H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D. H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G. B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless.

Well it’s good to have a car like that, once in a while somebody’ll say, ‘why don’t you come over for dinner?’ and I can just say, ‘Car won’t make it. ’ I don’t have to tell them that time is scarcer than young pussy around here, and I don’t mean time to write POETRY. I mean time to lay in bed, alone, and stare up at the ceiling and not think at all, not at all, not at all…,So be careful when you bend over.

I know that some nightin some bedroomsoonmy fingers willriftthroughsoft cleanhairsongs such as no radioplaysall sadness, grinninginto flow.

there’s nothing todiscussthere’s nothing torememberthere’s nothing toforgetit’s sadand it’s notsadseems themost sensiblethinga person can doissitwith drink inhandas the wallswavetheir goodbyesmilesone comes throughit allwith a certain amount ofefficiency andbraverythenleavessome acceptthe possibility ofGodto help themgetthroughotherstake itstaight onand to theseI drink tonight.

now it’s computers and more computersand soon everybody will have one,3-year-olds will have computersand everybody will know everythingabout everybody elselong before they meet them. nobody will want to meet anybodyelse ever againand everybody will bea recluselike I am now.

Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it.

Love is for real men.

I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.

darkness falls upon Humanityand faces become terriblethingsthat wanted more than therewas. all our days are marked withunexpectedaffronts - somedisastrous, othersless sobut the process iswearing andcontinuous. attrition rules. most givewayleavingempty spaceswhere people shouldbe. and nowas we ready to self-destructthere is very little left tokillwhich makes the tragedyless and moremuch muchmore.

sometimes all we need to be able to continue aloneare the deadrattling the wallsthat close us in.

I could never acceptlife as it was,I could never gobbledown all itspoisonsbu there were parts,tenuous magic partsopen for theasking.

She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something.

I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.

for meobedience to another is the decayof self,I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.

we know God is dead, they’ toldus, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybeit was the upper case. you were one of thebest female poets and I told the publishers, editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’magic. there’ no lie in her fire. ” I loved youlike a man loves a woman he never touches, onlywrites to, keeps little photographs of. I would haveloved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling acigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, alllovers betray. it didn’ help. you saidyou had a crying bench and it was by a bridge andthe bridge was over a river and you sat on the cryingbench every night and wept for the lovers who hadhurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but neverheard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met youI would probably have been unfair to you or youto me. it was best like this.

Why does a man destroy himself or what destroys him? I would have to judge that suicide is mostly the tool of the thinking man. The right to suicide should be the same as the right to love.

I canalmost understandwhypeopleleapfrombridges.

There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure and moving on. Yet most people are stricken with fear. They fear failure so much that they fail.

She was perfect, pure maddening sex, and she knew it, and she played on it, dripped it, and allowed you to suffer for it.

If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.

don’t be like so many writers,don’t be like so many thousands ofpeople who call themselves writers,don’t be dull and boring andpretentious, don’t be consumed with self-love. the libraries of the world haveyawned themselves tosleepover your kind. don’t add to that. don’t do it.

What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.

people who eat 3 meals a day throughout lifehave never reallytastedFood. . .

There was nothing glorious about the life of a drinker or the life of a writer.

The centuries are sprinkled with rare magicwith divine creatureswho help us get past the common and extraordinary ills that beset us,the grace is being able to like rock music,symphony music, jazz …anything that contains the original energy ofjoy.

the people are the biggesthorror show on earth,have been forcenturies.

And it seems people should not build houses anymoreit seems people should stop working and sit in small rooms on second floorsunder electric lightswithout shades;it seems there is a lot to forgetand a lot not to doand in drugstores, markets, bars,the people are tired, they do not want to move, and I stand there at nightand look through this house and the house does not want to be built,Yawn. . . I believe that I love sleepmuch more than anybody I’ve evermet. I have the ability to sleep for2 or 3 days andnights. I will go to bed at any givenmoment. I often confused my girlfriendsthis way—say it would be about onethirtyin the afternoon:“well, I’m going to bed now, I’mgoing to sleep…”most of them wouldn’t mind, theywould go to bed with methinking I was hinting forsexbut I would just turn my backand snore off. this, of course, could explainwhy so many of my girlfriendsleft me. as for doctors, they were neverany help:“listen, I have this desire togo to bed and sleep, almost allthe time. what is wrong withme?”“do you get enough exercise?”“yes…”“are you getting enoughnourishment?”“yes…”they always handed me aprescriptionwhich I threw awaybetween the office and theparking lot. it’s a curious maladybecause I can’t sleep between6 p. m. and midnight. it must occur aftermidnightand when I ariseit can never bebefore noon. and should the phone ringsay at 10:30 a. m. I go into a mad ragedon’t even ask who the callerisscream into thephone: “WHAT ARE YOUCALLING ME FOR AT THISHOUR!”hangup…every person, I suppose, hastheir eccentricitiesbut in an effort to benormalin the world’seyethey overcome themand thereforedestroy theirspecial calling. I’ve kept mineand do believe thatthey have lent generously tomy existence. I think it’s the main reason Idecided to become awriter: I can typeanytime andsleepwhen I damn wellplease.

the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh.

aboutour argument tonightwhatever it wasaboutand no matterhow unhappyit made usfeelremember thatthere is acatsomewhereadjusting to thespace of itselfwith a delightfulwonderment ofeasiness. in other wordsmagic persistswithout usno matter whatwe doagainst it.

beware women grownoldwho were neveranything butyoung,I always felt it wouldpass. I listened to the charges against meknowing some of them to be truebut certainly notimportant enoughto become the target ofviolence, envy,vengeance. I thought it would surelypass.

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,when Whitman wrote, “I sing the body electric”I know what hemeantI know what hewanted:to be completely alive every momentin spite of the inevitable. we can’t cheat death but we can make itwork so hardthat when it does takeusit will have known a victory just asperfect asours,and love is a word usedtoo much andmuchtoo soon.

regret is mostly caused by not havingdone anything.

I found the best thingI could dowas just to type awayat my own workand let the dyingdieas they always have.

wesat theresmokingcigarettesat5in the morning.

There is a blue bird in my heart that wants to get out.

hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.

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.

as the shadows assumeshapesI fight the slowretreatnowmy once-promisedwindlingdwindlingnowlighting new cigarettespouring moredrinksit has been a beautifulfightstillis.

the lies of centuries, the lies of love,the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christwill be your bedmates and tombstonesin a death that will never end.

I went to the kitchen and felt-up the turkey.

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.

Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governments.

Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?,People were usually much better in their letters than in reality. They were much like poets in this way.

the impossibility of being humanall too humanthis breathingin and outout and inthese punksthese cowardsthese championsthese mad dogs of glorymoving this little bit of light towardusimpossibly.

Something else is hurting you - that’s why you need pot or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can’t think.

as a childi supposei was not quitenormal. my happiest times werewheni was left alone inthe house on asaturday.

. . . still, I’m lucky: I feast on solitude, I will never miss the crowd. I could read the great books but the great books don’t interest me. I sit in bed and wait for the whole thing to go one way or the other. just like everybody else.

Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence.

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.

I dislike interaction. The less I say the better I feel. I was naturally a loner. I didn’t want conversation, or to goanywhere. I didn’t understand other people who wanted to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I was drawn toall the wrong things: 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 Ireally wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. Relationships never worked with me. I alwayslost interest. I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings.

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. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn’t fit the other. I didn’t care,I dislike interaction. The less I say the better I feel. I was naturally a loner. I didn’t want conversation, or to goanywhere. I didn’t understand other people who wanted to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I was drawn to all the wrong things: 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. Relationships never worked with me. I alwayslost interest. I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings.

The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you’ll live ten times longer than if you have ten. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever.

We’ve all heard that little woman who says, “Oh, it’s terrible what these young people do to themselves, in my lsi other drugs, is a terrible thing”. Then you look, the woman who speaks in this way: you have no eyes, no teeth, no brains, no soul, no ass, no mouth, no warmth, no spirit, nothing, just a stick… and avran made ​​you wonder how to reduce it in that state teas and pastries and the church.

what you werewill not happen again. the tigers have found meand I do not care.

I´ve given you my time. Its all I´ve got to give - its all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.

I decided to stay in bed until noon. Maybe by then half the world would be dead and it would only be half as hard to take.

I can see wherecreation oftenstops while thebody still livesand oftendoes not careto. the death of lifebefore lifedies.

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.

Most so-called brave people lack imagination. As though they can’t conceive of what would happen if something went wrong. The truly brave overcome their imagination and do what they have to do.

my poems are only bits of scratchingon the floor of acage.

The Artist," an ancient sage had once said, "is always sitting on the doorsteps of the rich.

We’ve each given the hours of our lives in dull rote jobs for other men’s profit, and have been asked to be grateful for doing that.

You think of killing himon the spotbut discard that thought andleave,down into the urine-stinkingelevator, they have you crucified too, America at work, where they rip out your intestinesand your brain and your will and your spirit. They suck you dry, then throw you away. The capitalist system. The work ethic. The profit motive. The memory of your father’s words,“work hard and you’ll be appreciated. ” of course, only if you make much more for them than they payyou.

Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces.

my beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the world.

no concept of danger, reality, flow or compassion. you can feel the despair escaping from their machines, their lives as hopeless and as numbed as yours.

My heart is a thousand years old. I am not like other people.

now look, she said, stretched out on the bed, I don’t want anything personal, let’s just do it, I don’t want to get involved, got it? she kicked off her high-heeled shoes… sure, he said, standing there, let’s just pretend that we’ve already done it, there’s nothing less involved than that, is there? what the hell do you mean? she asked. I mean, he said, I’d rather drink anyhow. and he poured himself one. it was a lousy night in Vegas and he walked to the window and looked out at the dumb lights. you a fag? she asked, you a god damned fag? no, he said. you don’t have to get shitty,. . .

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,The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence".

there is enough treachery , hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day,and beware those whoonly takeinstructions from theirGodfor they havefailed completely to live their ownlives.

for meobedience to another is the decay of self. for though every being is similareach being is differentand to herd our differencesunder one lawdegrades each self.

Cats tell me without effort all that there is to know.

DEATH COMES SLOWLY LIKE ANTS TO A FALLEN FIG,Isolation is a gift. Everything else is just a test of your endurance. You will be alone with the Gods. Your nights will flame with fire.

I was like a turd that drew flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted to live alone,I felt best being alone, cleaner,,I kept telling myself that all the women in the world weren´t whores, just mine.

The cat is the beautiful devil.

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.

The Genius Of The Crowdthere is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the averagehuman being to supply any given army on any given dayand the best at murder are those who preach against itand the best at hate are those who preach loveand the best at war finally are those who preach peacethose who preach god, need godthose who preach peace do not have peacethose who preach peace do not have lovebeware the preachersbeware the knowersbeware those who are always reading booksbeware those who either detest povertyor are proud of itbeware those quick to praisefor they need praise in returnbeware those who are quick to censorthey are afraid of what they do not knowbeware those who seek constant crowds forthey are nothing alonebeware the average man the average womanbeware their love, their love is averageseeks averagebut there is genius in their hatredthere is enough genius in their hatred to kill youto kill anybodynot wanting solitudenot understanding solitudethey will attempt to destroy anythingthat differs from their ownnot being able to create artthey will not understand artthey will consider their failure as creatorsonly as a failure of the worldnot being able to love fullythey will believe your love incompleteand then they will hate youand their hatred will be perfectlike a shining diamondlike a knifelike a mountainlike a tigerlike hemlocktheir finest art,Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.

Belane, are you nuts?"Who knows? Insanity is comparative. Who sets the norm?,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.

Some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must live.

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.

peace of mind and heartarriveswhen we accept what is:having beenborn into thisstrange lifewe must acceptthe wasted gamble of ourdaysand take some satisfaction inthe pleasure ofleaving it allbehind.

There is always somebody about to ruin your day, if not your life.

Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.

Meanwhile the 3 a. m. drunks of the world would lay in their beds, trying in vain to sleep, and deserving that rest, if they could find it.

The street to my left was backed up with traffic and I watched the people waiting patiently in the cars. There was almost always a man and a women, staring straight ahead, not talking. It was, finally, for everyone, a matter of waiting. You waited and you waited- for the hospital, the doctor, the plumber, the madhouse, the jail, papa death himself. First the signal red, then the signal was green. The citizens of the world ate food and watched t. v. and worried about their jobs or lack of the same, while they waited.

Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could never cure her eyes of that.

I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.

from the beginning, through themiddle years and up to theend:too bad, too bad, too bad.

I am sick with caring.

The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no people, nothing.

Yes?’ he asked, looking at me over the sheet. ‘I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations. ’‘Oh, a writer, eh?’‘Yes. ’‘Are you sure?’‘No, I’m not. ’‘What do you write?’‘Short stories mostly. And I’m halfway through a novel. ’‘A novel, eh?’‘Yes. ’‘What’s the name of it?’‘”The Leaky Faucet of My Doom. ”‘‘Oh, I like that. What’s it about?’‘Everything. ’‘Everything? You mean, for instance, it’s about cancer?’‘Yes. ’‘How about my wife?’‘She’s in there too.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.