Favorite line from Buk?
- Thread starter Kingcargo.jb
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That line, "I'am a genius, but nobody knows it but me." I think from Factotum. This pretty much encapsulates the entire Buk experience for me. Not only do I feel this way about my own writing, I feel this way about Buk. I have written a line in a novel of mine that I think might apply to Buk, it goes, "Am I really a genius? Or are they all just fools?" I don't know. I have published poetry, a short story and all, but I don't feel like I know what I'm doing sometimes, and I just go with it. That's what I think Buk meant at least. But he might be genius. And maybe I'm just a fool. In my lifetime, I'am certain I'm just a fool. Until I get famous :)
"There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure and moving on. Yet most people are stricken with fear. They fear failure so much that they fail."
The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
Not really a line, but I think this passage from "Ham On Rye" describes how I felt when I first discovered Bukowski, and it's always stayed with me:
"I opened the book at random and began reading. It was about a man at a piano. How false it seemed at first. But I kept reading. The man at the piano was troubled. His mind was saying things. Dark and curious things. The lines on the page were pulled tight, like a man screaming, but not "Joe, where are you?" More like, Joe, where is anything? This Lawrence of the tight and bloody line. I had never been told about him. Why the secret? Why wasn't he advertised?"
"I opened the book at random and began reading. It was about a man at a piano. How false it seemed at first. But I kept reading. The man at the piano was troubled. His mind was saying things. Dark and curious things. The lines on the page were pulled tight, like a man screaming, but not "Joe, where are you?" More like, Joe, where is anything? This Lawrence of the tight and bloody line. I had never been told about him. Why the secret? Why wasn't he advertised?"
about the PEN conference
take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning.
'You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense'
From let it enfold you
I was living a hell in
small rooms, I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being
evicted, jailed, in and
out of fights, in and out
of my mind.
'Betting on the Muse'
PhillyDave
“The essential doesn't change.” Beckett
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."
"The best of you I like more than you think." and "Don't try"
"The best of you I like more than you think." and "Don't try"
Also, I really like this passage from Ham on Rye:
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.
If what a writer wrote was published and sold many, many copies, the writer thought he was great. If what a writer wrote was published and sold a medium number of copies, the writer thought he was great. If what a writer wrote was published and sold very few copies, the writer thought he was great. If what the writer wrote never was published and he didn't have the money to publish it himself, then he thought he was truly great. The truth, however, was that there was very little greatness. It was almost nonexistent, invisible. But you could be sure that the worst writer had the most confidence, the least self-doubt.
--Charles Bukowski
--Charles Bukowski
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I love his work, but that's the worst ending ever. He seems to always end on a weak metaphor ("look, a tom cat -- like me!"; "the toy boxer fell on his ass -- like me!".
I'm looking forward to reading/watching some bio's; I get the sense he hated ending novels. He just decided he was done and ended it.
Some of his endings beg for a rim shot...
The other theme I see is the "oroborus" -- a perfect circle of self-destruction. Barfly (and maybe Post Office?) ends like that -- right where it began, with Chinaski's head chomping his own ass.
Oh yeah... best line, IMO, thus far is the very first line in Post Office: "It began as a mistake."
That says it all.
"to get the word down proper, that takes courage, seeing the form, living the life, and getting it into the line"
high five to anyone who knows where it's from, but i'll post the answer tmrw night if i still remember :rollfool:
high five to anyone who knows where it's from, but i'll post the answer tmrw night if i still remember :rollfool:
yessir! also published in portions of a wine stained notebook, aka the collection that david built.
second keeper line for those who don't have time to click nado's link:
"Hemingway studied the bullfights for form and meaning and courage and failure and the way."
man. makes me wonder what I study, and why ...
second keeper line for those who don't have time to click nado's link:
"Hemingway studied the bullfights for form and meaning and courage and failure and the way."
man. makes me wonder what I study, and why ...
During my early schooldays I was an underdog from day one and not treated very well by older classmates. at the worst moment during household arts class my bullies put me completely in a front-loading washer. that happened 30 years ago but I still have to choke while reading the first lines of me against the world (Betting On The Muse):
when I was a kid
one of the questions asked was,
would you rather eat a bucket of shit
or drink a bucket of piss?
I thought that was easy.
"that's easy," I said, "I'll take the
piss."
"maybe we'll make you do both,"
they told me.
when I was a kid
one of the questions asked was,
would you rather eat a bucket of shit
or drink a bucket of piss?
I thought that was easy.
"that's easy," I said, "I'll take the
piss."
"maybe we'll make you do both,"
they told me.
G
GDPR 4124
You can't beat death but
you can beat death in life,
sometimes.
you can beat death in life,
sometimes.
Digney in Burnaby
donkeys live a long time
"The best thing is to be alone but not quite alone." From The Captain.... Can't be confident that book wasn't given the once over by the editor but I wrote the line down in a note book so it obviously meant something at that point (not that long ago) and, again, right now.
