The Reading Room

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”

“when we were kids laying around the lawn on our bellies we often talked about how we'd like to die and we all agreed on the same thing; we'd all like to die fucking (although none of us had done any fucking) and now that we are hardly kids any longer we think more about how not to die and although we're ready most of us would prefer to do it alone under the sheets now that most of us have fucked our lives away.”

“Find what you love and let it kill you.”

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”

“regret is mostly caused by not having done anything.”

“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.”

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?”

“great writers are indecent people they live unfairly saving the best part for paper. good human beings save the world so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal. if you read this after I am dead it means I made it.”

“some moments are nice, some are nicer, some are even worth writing about.”

“My ambition is handicapped by laziness”

“Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.”

“Never get out of bed before noon.”

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

“being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.”

“We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.”

“You can do without a woman but not a typewriter.”

“What is your advice to young writers?” “Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.”

“The Laughing Heart your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.”

“Do you hate people?” “I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”

“Her violence frightened me. She always claimed that I was the jealous one, and I was often jealous, but when I saw things working against me I simply became disgusted and withdrew. Lydia was different. She reacted. She was the Head Cheerleader at the Game of Violence.”

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

“Joan of Arc had style. Jesus had style.”

“Born into this Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes...”

“The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation.”

“during my worst times on the park benches in the jails or living with whores I always had this certain contentment- I wouldn't call it happiness- it was more of an inner balance that settled for whatever was occuring and it helped in the factories and when relationships went wrong with the girls. it helped through the wars and the hangovers the backalley fights the hospitals. to awaken in a cheap room in a strange city and pull up the shade- this was the craziest kind of contentment and to walk across the floor to an old dresser with a cracked mirror- see myself, ugly, grinning at it all. what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”

“I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don't even know I'm working on. It's a free lunch. A free dinner. I don't know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.”

“What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man's soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.”

“We're all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.”

“We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.”

“nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing.”

“Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”

“not writing is not good but trying to write when you can't is worse.”

“I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.”

“I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.”

“I'm one of those who doesn't think there is much difference between an atomic scientist and a man who cleans the crappers except for the luck of the draw - parents with enough money to point you toward a more generous death. of course, some come through brilliantly, but there are thousands, millions of others, bottled up, kept from even the most minute chance to realize their potential.”

“People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.”

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

“I had also read somewhere that if a man didn't truly believe or understand what he was espousing, somehow he could do a more convincing job”

“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.”

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”

“be it peace or happiness let it enfold you”

“I don't like the clean-shaven boy with the necktie and the good job. I like desperate men, men with broken teeth and broken minds and broken ways. They interest me. They are full of surprises and explosions.”

“I see a bright portion under the overhead light that shades into darkness and then into darker darkness and I can't see beyond that.”

“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.”

“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.”

“the best part was pulling down the shades stuffing the doorbell with rags putting the phone in the refrigerator and going to bed for 3 or 4 days. and the next best part was nobody ever missed me.”

“The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you'll live 10 times longer than if you have 10. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever. It's truly ridiculous.”