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...

unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don’t do it

Why can’t you be decent to people?” she asked. “Fear,” I said.

agony sometimes changes formbut it never ceases foranybody.

it is so dark now with the sadness ofpeoplethey were tricked, they were taught to expect theultimate when nothing ispromisednow young girls weep alone in small roomsold men angrily swing their canes atvisions asladies comb...

Ricorderò la tua piccola stanza, la sensazione di te, la luce nella finestra, i tuoi dischi, i tuoi libri, il nostro caffè al mattino, i nostri pomeriggi, le nostre notti, i nostri corpi attaccati, il...

I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.

it doesn’t matter if Prince Charles falls off his horseor that the hummingbird is so seldomseenor that we are too senseless to goinsane.coffee. give us more of that NOTHINGcoffee.

There’s too much coldness in the world,” I told her. “If people would only talk things out together it would help.

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...

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,...

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...

since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light

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.

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...

there’s no clarity.there was never meant to be clarity.

sleeping in the rain helps me forget things like I am going todie and you are going to die and the cats are going to diebut it’s still good to stretch out and know you...

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

there 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...

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

when we were kidslaying around the lawnon ourbellieswe often talkedabouthowwe’d like todieandwe allagreed on thesamething;we’d alllike to diefucking(althoughnone of ushaddone anyfucking)and nowthatwe are hardlykidsany longerwe think moreabouthownot todieandalthoughwe’rereadymost ofuswouldprefer todo italoneunder thesheetsnowthatmost ofushave fuckedour livesaway.

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...