Ham on Rye Quotes

“Todos los domingos la gente venía y aspiraba aquel olor a meado y nadie decía nada. Quería hablarle al cura acerca de ello, pero no podía. Quizás fueran los cirios.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I was just a 50-cent turd floating around in the
green ocean of life.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The back was something the assholes had never figured out how to amputate.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“They experimented on the poor and if that worked they used the treatment on the rich. And if it didn't work, there would still be more poor people left over to experiment upon.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Not only did the grown-ups get mean, the kids got mean, and even the animals got mean. It was like they took their cue from the people.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Nobody knew how good I was, nobody knew what I could do. I was some kind of miracle. The sun tossed yellow everywhere and I cut through it, a crazy knife on wheels. My father was a beggar in the streets of India but all the women in the world loved me...”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Who in the Hell is Tom Jones?"

I was shacked with a
24 year old girl from
New York City for
two weeks- about
the time of the garbage
strike out there, and
one night my 34 year
old woman arrived and
she said, "I want to see
my rival." she did
and then she said, "o,
you're a cute little thing!"
next I knew there was a
screech of wildcats-
such screaming and scratch-
ing, wounded animal moans,
blood and piss. . .
I was drunk and in my
shorts. I tried to
seperate them and fell,
wrenched my knee. then
they were through the screen
door and down the walk
and out into the street.
squadcars full of cops
arrived. a police heli-
coptor circled overhead.
I stood in the bathroom
and grinned in the mirror.
it's not often at the age
of 55 that such splendid
things occur.
better than the Watts
riots.
the 34 year old
came back in. she had
pissed all over her-
self and her clothing
was torn and she was
followed by 2 cops who
wanted to know why.
pulling up my shorts
I tried to explain.

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye: A Novel. (Ecco; Reprint edition July 29, 2014) Originally published 1982.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I walked around the library looking for books. I pulled them off the shelves, one by one. But they were all tricks. They were very dull. There were pages and pages of words that didn’t say anything. Or if they did say something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you already were too tired to have it matter at all.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“What a weary time those years were—to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“My mother was reading the note. Soon I heard her crying. Then she was wailing. “Oh, my god! You’ve disgraced your father and myself! It’s a disgrace! Suppose the neighbors find out? What will the neighbors think?” They never spoke to their neighbors.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it’s happening to them.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The whole college scene was soft. They never told you what to expect out there in the real world. They just crammed you with theory and never told you hard the pavements were. A college education could destroy an individual for life. Books could make you soft. When you put them down, and really went out there, then you needed to know what they never told you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I had also read somewhere that if a man didn't truly believe or understand what he was espousing, somehow he could do a more convincing job, which gave me a considerable advantage over the teachers.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more foolish.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The first day we rode our bikes to Chelsey and parked them. It was a terrible feeling. Most of those kids, at least all the older ones, had their own automobiles, many of them new convertibles, and they weren't black or dark blue like most cars, they were bright yellow, green, orange, and red. The guys sat in them outside of the school and the girls gathered around and went for rides. Everybody was nicely dressed, the guys and the girls, they had pullover sweaters, wrist watches and the latest in shoes. They seemed very adult and poised and superior. And there I was in my homemade shirt, my one ragged pair of pants, my rundown shoes, and I was covered with boils. The guys with the cars didn't worry about acne. They were very handsome, they were tall and clean with bright teeth and they didn't wash their hair with hand soap. They seemed to know something I didn't know. I was at the bottom again.

Since all the guys had cars Baldy and I were ashamed of our bicycles. We left them home and walked to school and back, two-and-one-half miles each way. We carried brown bag lunches. But mot of the other students didn't even eat in the school cafeteria. They drove to malt shops with the girls, played the juke boxes and laughed. They were on their way to U.S.C.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“So that's what they wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That's what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for me.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The Baron went on doing magic things. Half the notebook was filled with Baron Von Himmlen. It made me feel good to write about the Baron. A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating living your life without a man like him around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Maybe if you could get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn't become so obvious yourself.”
― Charles Bukowski, 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 bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned 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. I”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“The lines on the page were pulled tight, like a man screaming, but not “Joe, where are you?” More like Joe, where is anything?”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Wealth meant victory and victory was the only reality. What”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“It didn’t pay to trust another human being. Humans didn’t have it, whatever it took. On”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Ćutao sam, jer kad mrziš, ne možeš da moliš...”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“When someone else’s truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that’s great. I”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“To think, somebody had suicided for that.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I was an Agnostic. Agnostics didn’t have much to argue about. I”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Мисълта да стана адвокат, политик или инженер, каквото и да е, ми се струваше невъзможна. Да се оженя, да имам деца, да попадна в плен на семейната институция. Всеки ден да ходя някъде на работа и да се връщам. Невъзможно. Да правя неща, прости неща, да участвам в семейни пикници, Коледа, Четвърти юли, Денят на труда, Денят на майката… наистина ли човек се раждаше само за да изтърпи всичко това и накрая да умре?”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Cuando la verdad de alguien es la misma que la tuya y parece que la está contando sólo para ti… eso es fantástico.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Lo más agradable de él era que nunca hablaba, a menos que se le preguntara algo. Nunca le pregunté nada.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Выпивка помогала мне хотя бы на время избавиться от чувства вечной растерянности и абсолютной ненужности. Все, к чему бы я ни прикасался, казалось мне пошлым и пустым. Ничего не интересовало, совершенно. Люди выглядели ограниченными в своей осторожности и щепетильной сосредоточенности на повседневных делах.”
― Чарльз Буковски, Ham on Rye