Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else’s truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to...

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.

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

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

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.

regret is mostly caused by not havingdone anything.

I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was...

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

there is enough treachery , hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day

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 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...

the worst thing,” he told me,”is bitterness, people end up sobitter.

where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die,

for a man of 55 who didn’t get laid until he was 23 and not very often until he was 50 I think that I should stay listed via Pacific Telephone until I get as...

we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecuewe are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we arean unwantedburningas we sizzle and fryto the bonethe coals of...

there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock

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

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

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

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...

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

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.

I didn’t like anything. Maybe I was afraid. That was it – I was afraid. I wanted to sit alone in a room with the shades down. I feasted upon that. I was a crank....

you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, a**hole,love means eventual painvictory means eventual defeatgrace means eventual slovenliness,there’s no wayout…you see, youunderstand?

The old gal was only another lonely creature in a world that didn’t care

I know a womanwho keeps buying puzzleschinesepuzzlesblockswirespieces that finally fitinto some order.she works it outmathmaticallyshe solves all herpuzzleslives down by the seaputs sugar out for the antsand believesultimatelyin a better world.her hair is whiteshe seldom...

In the old days, before I was married, or knew a lot of women, I would just pull down all the shades and go to bed for three or four days. I’d get up to...

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...

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

…wszystko jest stratą czasu, chyba że człowiek pieprzy się w najlepsze, tworzy w najlepsze, ma się jak najlepiej albo zmierza w kierunku ułudy pod tytułem miłość i szczęście. Wszyscy kończymy w gnojówce porażki – czy...

the gods play nofavorites.

There is a problem with writers. If what a writer wrote was published and sold many, many copies, the writer thought he was great. If what a writer wrote was published and sold a medium...

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

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

(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.

and love is a word usedtoo much andmuchtoo soon.

Ithink that theworld should be full of cats and full of rain, that’s all, justcats andrain, rain and cats, very nice, goodnight.

there are worse thingsthan being alonebut it often takesdecades to realize thisand most often when you doit’s too lateand there’s nothing worsethan too late

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...

alone with everybodythe flesh covers the boneand they put a mindin there andsometimes a soul,and the women breakvases against the wallsand them men drink toomuchand nobody finds theonebut they keeplookingcrawling in and outof beds.flesh coversthe...

well, death says, as he walks by, I’m going to get you anyhow no matter what you’ve been: writer, cab-driver, pimp, butcher, sky-diver, I’m going to get you

that your power of commandwith simple language wasone of the magnificent things ofour century.(from the poem: result)

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...

Beasts bounding through time. Van Gogh writing his brother for paintsHemingway testing his shotgunCeline going broke as a doctor of medicinethe impossibility of being humanVillon expelled from Paris for being a thiefFaulkner drunk in the...

If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days....

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

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

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,...

Getting drunk was good. I decided that I would always like getting drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe. If you could get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn’t become obvious yourself.

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...