we must bringour own lightto thedarkness.

Generally, I decided, it was better to wait, if you had any feeling for the individual. If you hated her right off, it was better to fuck her right off; if you didn’t, it was...

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

Whether I was a genius or not did not so much concern me as the fact that I simply did not want a part of anything. The animal-drive and energy of my fellow man amazed...

Yeah? Well, if there’s anything worse than a whore it’s a bore.

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...

the pleasures of the damnedare limited to brief momentsof happiness:like eyes in the look of a dog,like a square of wax,like a fire taking city hall,the county,the continent,like fire taking the hairof maidens and monsters;and...

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...

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

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,...

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...

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

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

tu figlio di puttana, disse lei, sto cercando di costruire una relazione che abbia senso.non puoi costruirla con un martello, disse lui

I canalmost understandwhypeopleleapfrombridges.

Do you hate people?I don’t hate them…I just feel better when they’re not around.

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.

there’s a bluebird in my heart thatwants to get outbut I’m too clever, I only let him outat night sometimeswhen everybody’s asleep.I say, I know that you’re there,so don’t besad.then I put him back,but he’s...

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

Basically, that’s why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.

hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.

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,...

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...

sometimes it’s hard to knowwhat todo.

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.

If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose

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.

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...

La mayoría de la muerte de la gente es una farsa, no queda en ellos nada que pueda morir

The place trembled with sound. I didn’t need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false...

I liked to fuck too, but it wasn’t my religion. There were too many ridiculous and tragic things about it. People didn’t seem to know how to handle it. So they made a toy out...

I wasn’t sleeping on the streets at night. Of course, there were a lot of good people sleeping in the streets. They weren’t fools, they just didn’t fit into the needed machinery of the moment....

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

Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?

I felt I had to win. It seemed very important. I didn’t know why it was important and I kept thinking, why do I think this is so important? And another part of me answered,...

She could talk. If she was a sphinx she could have talked, if she was a stone she could have talked. I wondered when she’d get tired and leave. Even after I stopped listening it...

I needed a vacation. I needed 5 women. I needed to get the wax out of my ears. My car needed an oil change. I’d failed to file my damned income tax. One of the...

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.

the writing of somemenis like a vast bridgethat carries youoverthe many thingsthat claw and tear.The Wine of Forever

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

As a recluse I couldn’t bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.

What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.

There’s a light somewhere.It may not be much light butit beats the darkness.

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

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.

nothing’s news.it’s the same old thing indisguise.only one thing comes without adisguise and you only see itonce, ormaybe never.like getting hit by a freighttrain.makes us realize that all ourmoaning about long lost girlsin gingham dressesis...

The secret is writing down one simple line after another.

and our few good times will be rare because we have the critical senseand are not easy to fool with laughter

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

Music is much like fucking, but some composers can’t climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent.