Hard Rain Falling (New York Review Books Classics)

by Don Carpenter

It’s like you get this tremendous urge to bust a window with your fist, dig, and if you went ahead and did it right then, wham, for about a half a second there you’d feel like the king of the world; but instead, you get to worryin about cuttin your hand and all that shit, so you hesitate and then get pissed off at yourself and bust the window anyway, only you’re self-conscious about it and don’t get any pleasure out of it at all.”

“Now, where did you get that idea? The idea of prison is punishment, an any reforming done is strictly incidental. Society don’t give a fuck what happens to you, and you know it.

“Sex is nice, but there are times when you’d rather cut your throat,”

out of spite or from fear of being alone. He wondered how many children were raised in homes without love, where the counterfeit was accepted as the coin,