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"You think of killing himon the spotbut discard that thought andleave,down into the urine-stinkingelevator, they have you crucified too, America at work, where they rip out your intestinesand your brain and your will and your spirit. They suck you dry, then throw you away. The capitalist system. The work ethic. The profit motive. The memory of your father's words,"work hard and you'll be appreciated. of course, only if you make much more for them than they payyou."
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"In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. . . ."

"We came to realise - first with astonishment, then bitterness, and finally with indifference - that intellect apparently wasn't the most important thing...not ideas, but the system; not freedom, but drill. We had joined up with enthusiasm and with good will; but they did everything to knock that out of us."

"We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world."

"People are stubborn and stupid. They're irrational. they're destructive. that's the point, isn't it? That's the whole reason for the cure. People will no longer destroy their own lives. They won't be capable of it."

"Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission."

"The oppressor is never as free as they think they are."

"The hardest memory of slavery that Rialla had to bear was not the lack of freedom, it was the lack of desiring freedom."

"When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive."

"To Survive In A Ruined World, She Must Embrace The Darkness."

"When you don't make it too far from the plantation, you might as well befriend your captors."
Explore more quotes by Charles Bukowski


"Some people never go crazy. Me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch for 3 or 4 days. They'll find me there. It's Cherub, they'll say, and they pour wine down my throat rub my chest sprinkle me with oils. Then, I'll rise with a roar, rant, rage - curse them and the universe as I send them scattering over the lawn. I'll feel much better, sit down to toast and eggs, hum a little tune, Suddenly become as lovable as a pink overfed whale. Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."


"When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great."


"Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, just look at the cats, you'll feel better, because they know that everything is, just as it is."


"My mother, poor fish,wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times aweek, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!why don't you ever smile?"and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was thesaddest smile I ever saw."


" Think of how many times you put on your underwear in a lifetime. It was appalling, it was disgusting, it was stupid."


"I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers."
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