Variant: Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.
Source: Factotum
“When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.”
Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 31
Context: I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.
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Charles Bukowski 555
American writer 1920–1994Related quotes
On drug use, in "I'm still haunted by Belushi" by Sean O'Hagan in The Observer (28 September 2003)
Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)
Context: Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all — the whole world — had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are — when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
Source: The moon and the bonfire (1950), Chapter X, p. 60
Variant: You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments when you really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.