I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.

Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.

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

I used to lay drunk in alleys and I probably will again.Bukowski, who is he? I read about Bukowski and it doesn't seem like anything to do with me.

I just want a hot cup of coffee,black,and I don’t want to hear about your troubles.

My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.

be it peace or happiness let it enfold you