What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.

I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.

Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are.

There are times when those eyes inside your brain stare back at you.

Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with their lives and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn't so.

I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a graveyard.

and when love came to us twice and lied to us twice we decided to never love again that was fair fair to us and fair to love itself. we ask for no mercy or no miracles; we are strong enough to live and to die and to kill flies, attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack, live on luck and skill, get alone, get alone often, and if you can't sleep alone be careful of the words you speak in your sleep; and ask for no mercy no miracles; and don't forget: time is meant to be wasted, love fails and death is useless.

Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.

When a hot woman meets a hermit one of them is going to change.

What's genius? I don't know but I do know that the difference between a madman and a professional is that a pro does as well as he can within what he has set out to do and a madman does exceptionally well at what he can't help doing.

the whole world is caught in her glance and at last the universe is magnificent.

It was like a church in there as only the truly lost sit in bars on Tuesday mornings at 8:00 a.m.

and the color in my eyes has gone back into the sea.

I have been treated better than I should have been---not by life in general nor by the machinery of things but by women.

love iz a big fat turkey and every day iz thanksgiving

all theories like cliches shot to hell, all these small faces looking up beautiful and believing; I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but believe is a graveyard. we have narrowed it down to the butcherknife and the mockingbird wish us luck.

I like the way Mahler wandered about in his music and still retained his passion. He must have looked like an earthquake walking down the street.

Christmas poem to a man in jail hello Bill Abbott: I appreciate your passing around my books in jail there, my poems and stories. if I can lighten the load for some of those guys with my books, fine. but literature, you know, is difficult for the average man to assimilate (and for the unaverage man too); I don't like most poetry, for example, so I write mine the way I like to read it.

a pro does as well as he can within what he has set out to do and a madman does exceptionally well at what he can't help doing.

I’ve memorized all the fish in the sea I’ve memorized each opportunity strangled and I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love and I’ve memorized that too. I’ve memorized green rooms in St. Louis and New Orleans where I wept because I knew that by myself I could not overcome the terror of them and it.

you fall into the mirror, come through the other side staring at a lightbulb.

it is all ash and dry leaves and grief gone like an ocean liner.

I write poetry, worry, smile, laugh sleep continue for a while just like most of us just like all of us; sometimes I want to hug all Mankind on earth and say, god damn all this that they've brought down upon us, we are brave and good even though we are selfish and kill each other and kill ourselves, we are the people born to kill and die and weep in dark rooms and love in dark rooms, and wait, and wait and wait and wait. we are the people. we are nothing more.

sometimes you die sometimes you don’t.

do it, do it, do it. do it. all the way all the way.

Everywhere, Everywhere" amazing, how grimly we hold onto our misery, ever defensive, thwarted by the forces. amazing, the energy we burn fueling our anger. amazing, how one moment we can be snarling like a beast, then a few moments later, forgetting what or why. not hours of this or days or months or years of this but decades, lifetimes completely use up, given over to the prettiest rancor and hatred. finally there is nothing here for death to take away.

all the poets wanted to get disability insurance it was better than immortality.

it’s moments like this - you can feel it happening - that you grow transformed partly into something else strange and unimaginable— so when death comes it can only take part of you rom “8 Count Concerto

yes, the real miracles are the thousands of tiny people who know exactly what they are doing. I used to look for inspiration in higher places but the higher you go like to Plato or God the less space there is in which to stand.

but when I see those lovely old boxcars with their faded painted lettering and those flat cars and those fat round tankers all lined up and waiting I get quiet inside I get what other men get from other things I just feel better and it’s good to feel better whenever you can not needing a reason.