Charles Bukowski

there__ nothing todiscussthere__ nothing torememberthere__ nothing toforgetit__ sadand it__ 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 something so sad has hold of us that the breath leaves and we can't even cry.

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. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your 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're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.

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

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

Existence was not only absurd, it was plain hard work

I'm not dead yet, just in a state of rapid decay, who isn't?

Hell was what you made it

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

So be careful when you bend over.

Well it__ good to have a car like that, once in a while somebody__l say, __hy don__ you come over for dinner?_ and I can just say, __ar won__ make it._ I don__ have to tell them that time is scarcer than young pussy around here, and I don__ 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_

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

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.

alone with everybody 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 them men drink too much and nobody finds the one but they keep looking crawling in and out of beds.flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh.there's no chance at all:we are all trapped by a singular fate.nobody ever finds the one.the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the mad houses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills.

Without literature, life is hell.

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

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 no miracles; we are strong enough to live and to die and to kill flies, attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack, live on luck and skill, get alone, get alone often, and if you can't sleep alone be careful of the words you speak in your sleep; and ask for no mercy no miracles; and don't forget: time is meant to be wasted, love failsand death is useless.

the gods seldomgivebut so quicklytake.