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

"The tigers have found me and I do not care."

"‎"she’ mad but she’ magic. there’ no lie in her fire."

"I said goodbye again sucking up all that was left of her into the little that was left of me. I said, 'don't look for me again. fuck it. we are all lost. goodbye, goodbye."

"So it's always a process of letting go, one way or another"

"Nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing."

""People "run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water."

"In this land some of us fuck more than we die but most of us die better than we fuck"

"Writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate they stop being writers."

"Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else."

"Any asshole can chase a skirt, art takes discipline."

"I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself."

"He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge."

"Nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving. it’s a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it."

"Whiskey makes the heart beat faster but it sure doesn't help the mind and isn't it funny how you can ache just from the deadly drone of existence?"

"One can never be sure whether it's good poetry or bad acid"

"To fight for each minute is to fight for what is possible within yourself, so that your life and your death will not be like theirs."

"People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice."

"And then there are some who believe that old relationships can be revived and made new again. but please if you feel that way don't phone don't write don't arrive"

"I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely."

"Nothing is worse than to finish a good shit, then reach over and find the toilet paper container empty. Even the most horrible human being on earth deserves to wipe his ass."

"In my next life I want to be a cat. To sleep 20 hours a day and wait to be fed. To sit around licking my ass."

"It was better for me when I could imagine greatness in others, even if it wasn't always there."

"It's better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it."

"I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me."

"The more crap you believe, the better off you are."

"The best often die by their own hand just to get away, and those left behind can never quite understand why anybody would ever want to get away from them"

"It was a joy! Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you."

"If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week."

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man."

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."

"I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men"

"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic."

"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts."

"An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men."

"We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us."

"Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive."

"Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions."

"One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die."

"We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."

"Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral."

"In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed."

"We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act."

"Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult--at least I have found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind."

"Great is the power of steady misrepresentation"

"Man selects only for his own good: Nature only for that of the being which she tends."

"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone."

"...for the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear."