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 me: that a man could change tires all day long or drive an ice cream truck or run for Congress or cut into a man's guts in surgery or murder, this was all beyond me. I did not want to begin. I still don't. Any day I that I could cheat away from this system of living seemed a good victory for me.

The ass is the face of the soul of sex.

that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers - they don't feel a hell of a lot except their own comfort or their own pain. which is normal but shitty.

the first place smelled like work, so I took the second

All we do is sleep, and eat and lay around and make love. We're like slugs. Slug-love, I call it.

You're the most unknown famous man I ever met

Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren't sure of was if we had any.

I don't know. It's been terribly hard for me. How do I know you won't do it again?''Nobody is ever quite sure of what they will do. You aren't sure what you might do.

You women have more holes than swiss cheese.

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.

people need me. I fillthem. if they can't see mefor awhile the get desperate, they getsick.but if I see them too oftenI get sick. it's hard to feedwithout getting fed.

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

There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets. . . when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.

It got so bad that Al thoughtmaybe it washimso he went to a shrinkand askedand the shrink said,you're one of the sanest menI've ever met.poor Al.that made him feelworse than ever.

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

crawled like a blind slug into the web

I remember yoursaying: make itor break it.neither happened anditwon't.

sometimes when everything seems atits worstwhen all conspiresand gnawsand the hours, days, weeksyearsseem wasted – stretched there upon my bedin the darklooking upward at the ceilingi get what many will consider anobnoxious thought:it's still nice to beBukowski.