Quote collection
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"And if there is anybody out there who is crazy enough to want to become a writer, I'd say go ahead, spit in the eye of the sun, hit those keys, it's the best madness going, the centuries need help, the species cry for light and gamble and laughter. Give it to them. There are enough words for all of us."
"Long before I became 'rich and famous' I just sat round drinking wine and staring at the walls."
"It's just that the grape has me down."
"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 much as the average man has had"
"I suppose like others I have come through fire and sword, love gone wrong, head-on crashes, drunk at sea, and I have listened to the simple sound of water running in tubs and wished to drown"
"Lawyers, doctors, plumbers, they all made the money. Writers? Writers starved. Writers suicided. Writers went mad."
"terror finally becomes almost bearable but never quite terror creeps like a cat crawls like a cat across my mind"
"they say that nothing is wasted: either that or it al is"
"and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed, shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look at this!" but they don't understand, they say something like,"you say you've been influenced by Celine?" no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by things like this, by this, by this!"
"I held her wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred, centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted. there was no creature living as foul as I and all my poems were false."
"if you think they didn't go crazy in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready."
"It's hot tonight and half the neighborhood is drunk. the other half is dead. if I have any advice about writing poetry it's - don't. I'm going to send out for some fried chicken."
"I was their bar freak, they needed me to make themselves feel better. just like, at times, I needed that graveyard."
"there is moss on the walls and the stain of thought and failure and waiting"
"I have seen too many men wilt and go silly under a little light, and then they continue to write and get published, turning out pure crap under a name that has become a bad habit. The next poem is all that counts. You can't stand on past poems."
"I can't think of any poet-recluses outside of one dead Jeffers. [Robinson Jeffers] The rest of them want to slobber over each other and hug each other. It appears to me that I am the last of the poet-recluses."
"The trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up."
"That's how it is with books, isn't it: They're not in a hurry. They'll wait for you till you're ready. People empty me. I have to go away to refill."
"why don't we go back out there and tell them what happened? because nothing happened except that everybody has been driven insane and stupid by life. in this society there are only two things that count: don't be caught without money and don't get caught high on any kind of high. (Night Streets of Madness)"
"I give you soul. I give you wisdom and light and music and a bit of laughter. Also, I am the world's greatest horseplayer."