Favorite line from Buk? (2 Viewers)

While looking for the "Sometimes you just have to pee..." didn't find it of course - but I got side tracked reading this story again and although it isn't my favourite line(s), I do love it, it makes me laugh when I see it:
Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook:Distractions In The Literary Life. p197.

This is why I became a writer.This is why I fought my way out of the factories.
This is the meaning and the way. I walk back into the room.
"I don't think I'll finish that story tonight" I say to Sandra.
"Who gives a fuck?" she asks.
"You have the soul of a centipede"
 
,,And I would scream,
but they have places for people
who scream;
And the cat walks
the cat walks forever
in my brain.’’

It sums up my life somehow, I don't know... It's from the Conversation on a Telephone.
 
Even purple stickpin has an asshole!!!
he's ok . once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a room full of people who only helped you when you looked for them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it. I glowed like a fucking hot tamale. it didn't matter. o. k. I smacked down another quarter pint out of embarrassment. I realized that I was the weaker of 4 people and I did not want to harm. I only wanted to realize their easy holiness. I lived like a crazy jackoff dog turned into a pen of heated female bitches, only they had miracles to show me beyond sperm.
 
...each of these poems is, in a sense, a demon turned loose, looking for light. each night is one more night and each day is unbelievable. dramatic? sure, like a knife going in. that's our culture, don't kid yourself. you can forget your courses in Appreciation of English Literature. that's just dried skin glued to a corpse...
(Bukowski in his foreword to Hitler Painted Roses)
 
Soo many...

"My beer soaked soul is sadder than all the world's dead christmas trees"

One I read again last night and made me laugh so hard I woke my wife up

"I stopped vomiting blood and began to shit blood. I thought I had it made"
 
"...the only thing that lasts..." Is that it, can't remember exactly...The scene in Barfly when M.R. sees the snarling dog barking out of the car window....Is that where you are quoting, or does it also appear elsewhere? One of my favorites also
 
You're mind serves you fairly well. It is from Barfly. When he sees the vicous barking dog he say "Ooohhh Beautiful" which messed my brain up. He say the line about hatred lasting from the old creepy guy who used to beat up his insane wife.

I also like the line " I don't like you, you don't like me, it's just ta nature of the way tings wourks." The wife beater says this to Hank.
 
"I am a poem.
There is no way out."

In a mood of righteous indignation at the poets who know the theory but little else and specifically here at Hugh Fox and his book on Bukowski. It's a great read ( the letter)
Letter to G Dumbrowski Jan 3 !969
Selected Letters Volume 2: 1965 -1970
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure whether this is a favorite line, or just one that sticks with me. I can't even remember the source, so if anyone can help ... It's one aspect of his genius I think, that in getting to the poetry of everyday life, he gives poetry and depth to OUR everyday lives. But whatever sorry stupid analysis. Anyway it's the line where he wonders if van Gogh cut his own toenails. Anybody remember that passage?
 
Sorry. I found it myself, like an asshole I didn't bother to look it up before posting, it was in The Captain Is Out .. Frankly it's far better than I had remembered it to be. Fucking guy was something else. How does anyone go from complaining about the shitty tools they give us to live life with, to some guy on skid row trying to hold up a liquor store with nail clippers, to fucking Dostoyevsky, Van Gogh and Beethoven.

"You know, somebody ought to invent a decent toenail clipper. I'm sure it can be done. The ones they give us to work with are really awkward and disheartening. I read where a guy on skid row tried to hold up a liquor store with a pair of toenail clippers. It didn't work there either. How did Dostoevsky cut his toenails? Van Gogh? Beethoven? Did they? I don't believe it."
 
New Year’s Eve was another bad night for me to get through. My parents had always delighted in New Year’s Eve, listening to it approach on the radio, city by city, until it arrived in Los Angeles. The firecrackers went off and the whistles and horns blew and the amateur drunks vomited and husbands flirted with other men’s wives and the wives flirted with whoever they could. Everybody kissed and played grab-ass in the bathrooms and closets and sometimes openly, especially at midnight, and there were terrible family arguments the next day not to mention the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl game.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top