"Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence."

"I killed four flies while waiting. Damn, death was everywhere. Man, bird, beast, reptile, rodent, insect, fish didn't have a chance. The fix was in. I didn't know what to do about it. I got depressed. You know, I see a boy at the supermarket, he's packing my groceries, then I see him sticking himself into his own grave along with the toilet paper, the beer and the chicken breasts."

"Not writing is not good but trying to write when you can't is worse."

"I've learned to feel good when I feel good.it's better to be driven around in a red porschethan to ownone. the luck of the fool is inviolate."

"Finally there is nothing here for death to take away."

"I could read the great books but the great books don't interest me."

"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."

"I love you butdon't know what todo."

"I paid, got up, walkedto the door, openedit.I heard the mansay, "that guy'snuts."out on the street Iwalked northfeelingcuriouslyhonored."

"It's all overrated, man. Sex is only a great thing if you're not getting any."

"So be careful when you bend over."

"Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter. Most people make too much of it. On these grounds a good fuck is not to be entirely scorned. But that's the result of a chance meeting too. You're damned right. Drink up. We'll have another."

"The grace is being able to like rock music, symphony music, jazz, anything that contains the original energy of joy."

"We've each given the hours of our lives in dull rote jobs for other men's profit, and have been asked to be grateful for doing that."

"Beware women grown old who were never anything but young."

"The impossibility of being humanall too humanthis breathingin and outout and inthese punksthese cowardsthese championsthese mad dogs of glorymoving this little bit of light towardusimpossibly."

"What you werewill not happen again.the tigers have found meand I do not care."

"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."

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

"Cats tell me without effort all that there is to know."

"Beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone."

"There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken."

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

"I am sad for the dead and I am sad for the livingbut not for my 5 cats."

"Be it peace or happinesslet it enfold you."

"There's too much coldness in the world," I told her. "If people would only talk things out together it would help."

"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence"."

"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."

"If you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,then wait patiently.if it never does roar out of you,do something else."

"As a childi supposei was not quitenormal.my happiest times werewheni was left alone inthe house on asaturday."

"You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics."

"I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready."

"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 could never acceptlife as it was,I could never gobbledown all itspoisonsbu there were parts,tenuous magic partsopen for theasking."

"The price of creationis nevertoo high.the price of livingwith other peoplealwaysis."

"Now it's computers and more computersand soon everybody will have one,3-year-olds will have computersand everybody will know everythingabout everybody elselong before they meet them.nobody will want to meet anybodyelse ever againand everybody will bea recluselike I am now."

"Darkness falls upon Humanityand faces become terriblethingsthat wanted more than therewas.all our days are marked withunexpectedaffronts - somedisastrous, othersless sobut the process iswearing andcontinuous.attrition rules.most givewayleavingempty spaceswhere people shouldbe.and nowas we ready to self-destructthere is very little left tokillwhich makes the tragedyless and moremuch muchmore."

"My heart is a thousand years old. I am not like other people."

"Regret is mostly caused by not havingdone anything."

"Well it's good to have a car like that, once in a while somebody'll say, 'why don't you come over for dinner?' and I can just say, 'Car won't make it.' I don't have to tell them that time is scarcer than young pussy around here, and I don't 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."

"All theorieslike clichesshot to hell,all these small faceslooking upbeautiful and believing;I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believe but believe is agraveyard. we have narrowed it down tothe butcherknife and themockingbird wish usluck."

"It doesn't matter if Prince Charles falls off his horseor that the hummingbird is so seldomseenor that we are too senseless to goinsane.coffee. give us more of that NOTHINGcoffee."

"The good times were over. Nobody gave a shit and nobody had any money and if they had any, they kept it."

"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."

"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside - remembering all the times you've felt that way."

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."

"What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman."

"As the shadows assumeshapesI fight the slowretreatnowmy once-promisedwindlingdwindlingnowlighting new cigarettespouring moredrinksit has been a beautifulfightstillis."

"Love needs too much help, he said.hate takes care of itself."

"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."