On Writing

by Charles Bukowski

gave the remainder; I am not addicted to reading my stuff after writing it. It’s like hanging onto faded flowers. They say Li Po burned his and sailed them down the river, but I figure in his case he was a pretty good self-critic and that he burned only the bad ones; then when the prince came up and asked for some stuff he plucked the good ones from close to his belly—down by the painting of the Manchurian doll with blue eyes. [ . . . ]