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"Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat."
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"Forgiveness does carry with it numerous obstacles and one may well be surprised why many people find it a very difficult hurdle to jump over."
"Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."
"What worried him worst at the moment - for it is often little things that are hardest to stand - was that his lip was bleeding where they had hit him and he couldn't wipe the little trickle of blood away although it tickled him."
"I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication. For change, stimulus. That petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space. "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant me at least a new servitude!"
"There is joy at the end of every struggle we face. But you can never cross over and get there with the boats of complains. Complainer is only an explainer of pain! Take action!"
"He seemed to be lying on the bed. He could not see very well. Her youthful, rapacious face, with blackened eyebrows, leaned over him as he sprawled there."'How about my present?' she demanded, half wheedling, half menacing."Never mind that now. To work! Come here. Not a bad mouth. Come here. Come closer. Ah!"No. No use. Impossible. The will but not the way. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Try again. No. The booze, it must be. See Macbeth. One last try. No, no use. Not this evening, I'm afraid."All right, Dora, don't you worry. You'll get your two quid all right. We aren't paying by results."He made a clumsy gesture. 'Here, give us that bottle. That bottle off the dressing-table.'"Dora brought it. Ah, that's better. That at least doesn't fail."
"I am strangely tired, not from having talked so much but at the mere thought of what I still have to say."
Explore more quotes by Charles Bukowski
"There were no judgments to be made, yet out of necessity one had to select. Beyond good and evil was all right in theory, but to go on living one had to select: some were kinder than others, some were simply more interested in you, and sometimes the outwardly beautiful and inwardly cold were necessary. The kinder ones fucked better, really, and after you were around them a while they seemed beautiful because they were."
"Now look, she said, stretched out on the bed, I don't want anything personal, let's just do it, I don't want to get involved, got it? she kicked off her high-heeled shoes, sure, he said, standing there, let's just pretend that we've already done it, there's nothing less involved than that, is there? what the hell do you mean? she asked. I mean, he said, I'd rather drink anyhow. and he poured himself one. it was a lousy night in Vegas and he walked to the window and looked out at the dumb lights. you a fag? she asked, you a god damned fag? no, he said. you don't have to get shitty."
"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 old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity."
"And it seems people should not build houses anymore it seems people should stop working and sit in small rooms on second floors under electric lights without shades; it seems there is a lot to forget and a lot not to do and in drugstores, markets, bars, the people are tired, they do not want to move, and I stand there at night and look through this house and the house does not want to be built."
"I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions."
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