"I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.'"
— Richard Brautigan

"Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords."
— Richard Brautigan

"Money is sad shit"
— Richard Brautigan (The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writing)

"Finding is losing something else.
I think about, perhaps even mourn,
what I lost to find this"
— Richard Brautigan (Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork)

"In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar."
— Richard Brautigan (In Watermelon Sugar)

"تو هم به من فکر می‌کنی
آن‌قدر
که من به تو؟"
— Richard Brautigan

"all of us have a place in history. mine is clouds."
— Richard Brautigan

"Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.

1.Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4."
— Richard Brautigan

"The bookstore was a parking lot for used graveyards. Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars. Most of the books were out of print, and no one wanted to read them any more and the people who had read the books had died or forgotten about them, but through the organic process of music the books had become virgins again."
— Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America)

"Excuse me, I said. I thought you were a trout stream.
I'm not, she said."
— Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America)

"Im haunted a little this evening by feelings that have no vocabulary and events that should be explained in dimensions of lint rather than words.

Ive been examining half-scraps of my childhood. They are pieces of distant life that have no form or meaning. They are things that just happened like lint.
"
— Richard Brautigan

"My God, ma'am, you're so pretty I'd walk ten miles barefooted on a freezing morning to stand in your shit."
— Richard Brautigan (The Abortion)

"I saw thousands of pumpkins last night
come floating in on the tide,
bumping up against the rocks and
rolling up on the beaches;
it must be Halloween in the sea"
— Richard Brautigan (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster)

"For the rest of my life I'll be thinking about that hamburger. I'll be sitting there at the counter, holding it in my hands with tears streaming down my cheeks. The waitress will be looking away because she doesn't like to see kids crying when they are eating hamburgers..."
— Richard Brautigan

"If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago:
Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name."
— Richard Brautigan (In Watermelon Sugar)

"He created his own Kool Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it."
— Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America)

"Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, “It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,”
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."
— Richard Brautigan (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster)

"the sweet juices of your mouth
are like castles bathed in honey.
i've never had it done so gently before.
you have put a circle of castles
around my penis and you swirl them
like sunlight on the wings of birds."
— Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America/The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster/In Watermelon Sugar)

"In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar. I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant."
— Richard Brautigan (In Watermelon Sugar)

"We looked like a parade barely moving toward YOU MIGHT GET LOST."
— Richard Brautigan

"The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster

When you take your pill
it's like a mine disaster.
I think of all the people
lost inside you."
— Richard Brautigan (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster)

"I'm in a constant process of thinking about things. "
— Richard Brautigan

"because you always have a clock strapped to your body, it's natural that i should think of you as the correct time: with your long blonde hair at 8:03, and your pulse-lightning breasts at 11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30, i know i'm right."
— Richard Brautigan

"The old woman had an old dog, but he hardly counted any more. He was so old that he looked like a stuffed dog. Once I took him for a walk down to the store. It was just like taking a stuffed dog for a walk. I tied him up to a stuffed fire hydrant and he pissed on it, but it was only stuffed piss."
— Richard Brautigan

"All of us have roles in history. Mine is clouds."
— Richard Brautigan

"This morning I saw a coyote walking through the sagebrush right at the very edge of the ocean ― next stop China. The coyote was acting like he was in New Mexico or Wyoming, except that there were whales passing below. That’s what this country does for you. Come down to Big Sur and let your soul have some room to get outside its marrow."
— Richard Brautigan (A Confederate General from Big Sur)

"Gee, You're so Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain

Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A

Computer Magic
A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
A

Finding out about Fish
A

Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty
A+!
"
— Richard Brautigan (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster)

"All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds. "
— Richard Brautigan

"Elizabeth's voice had a door in it. When you opened that door you found another door, and that door opened yet another door. All the doors were nice and led out of her."
— Richard Brautigan

"I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant."
— Richard Brautigan (In Watermelon Sugar)

"
می کوشد تیغ بزند
مردان را
که چیزی دستش را نمی گیرد
چون که او
15 % زیباتر نیست

"
— Richard Brautigan

"خورشید مثل یک سکه پنجاه سنتی خیلی بزرگ بود که یک نفر نفت روش ریخته و کبریت کشیده و روشنش کرده و گفته "بیا اینو نگه دار تا من برم یه روزنامه بگیرم بیام"و سکه را کف دستم گذاشته و دیگر
برنگشته بود
(از کتاب صید قزل آلا در آمریکا)"
— Richard Brautigan

"Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.

1.Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

4."
— Richard Brautigan

"I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it.
She wanted her next lover to be a broom. "
— Richard Brautigan

"A sombrero fell out of the sky and landed on the main street of town in front of the mayor, his cousin, and a person out of work. The day was scrubbed clean by the desert air. The sky was blue. It was the blue of human eyes, waiting for something to happen. There was no reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky. No airplane or helicopter was passing overhead and it was not a religious holiday."
— Richard Brautigan (Sombrero Fallout)

"I thought about it for awhile, hiding it from the rest of my mind. But I didn't ruin my birthday by secretly thinking about it too hard"
— Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America)

"Once upon a valley
There came down
From some goldenblue mountains
A handsome young prince
Who was riding a dawncolored horse
Names Lordsburg.

I love you
You’re my breathing castle
Gentle so gentle
We’ll live forever

In the valley
There was a beautiful maiden
Whom the prince drifted into love with
Like a New Mexico made from apple thunder and long
glass beds.

I love you
You’re my breathing castle
Gentle so gentle
We’ll live forever

The prince enchanted
The maiden
And they rode off
On the dawncolored horse
Named Lordsburg
Toward the goldenblue mountains.

I love you
You’re my breathing castle
Gentle so gentle
We’ll live forever

They would have lived
happily ever after
if the horse hadn’t had
a flat tire
In front of a dragon’s
House."
— Richard Brautigan

"We stepped outside rather hurriedly and down the street to anonymous sanctuary among the buildings of San Francisco.
"Promise me till your dying day, you'll believe that a Mellon was a Confederate general. It's the truth. That God-damn book lies! There was a Confederate general in my family!"
"I promise," I said and it was a promise that was kept."
— Richard Brautigan (A Confederate General from Big Sur/Dreaming of Babylon/The Hawkline Monster)

"The old woman had an old dog, but he hardly counted any more. He was so old that he looked like a stuffed dog. Once I took him for a walk down to the shore. It was just like taking a stuffed dog for a walk. I tied him up to a stuffed fire hydrant and he pissed on it, but it was only stuffed piss."
— Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America)

"Peut-être que vous étiez allongé au lit, presque sur le point de vous endormir, et vous avez ri de quelque chose, une plaisanterie toute personnelle, une bonne façon de finir la journée. C'est ça, mon nom."
— Richard Brautigan (Tokyo-Montana Express)