there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone. sitting up in my bed the lights out, hearing the outside sounds, lifting my cheap bottle of wine, letting the warmth of the grape enter me as I heard the rats moving about the room, I preferred them to humans. being lost, being crazy maybe is not so bad if you can be that way undisturbed. New Orleans gave me that. nobody ever called my name.
Charles BukowskiAs a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.
Charles BukowskiThanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: There sat the 18-pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.
Charles BukowskiI once lay in a white hospital for the dying and the dying self, where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die, where on my knees I prayed for LIGHT, I prayed for l*i*g*h*t, and praying crawled like a blind slug into the web where threads of wind stuck against my mind and I died of pity for Man, for myself, on a cross without nails, watching in fear as the pig belches in his sty, farts, blinks and eats.
Charles BukowskiYes?โ he asked, looking at me over the sheet. โIโm a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.โ โOh, a writer, eh?โ โYes.โ โAre you sure?โ โNo, Iโm not.โ โWhat do you write?โ โShort stories mostly. And Iโm halfway through a novel.โ โA novel, eh?โ โYes.โ โWhatโs the name of it?โ โโThe Leaky Faucet of My Doom.โโ โOh, I like that. Whatโs it about?โ โEverything.โ โEverything? You mean, for instance, itโs about cancer?โ โYes.โ โHow about my wife?โ โSheโs in there too.
Charles Bukowski