Paul Cantor > Paul's Quotes

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Life just seems too huge and too fascinating for me to begin thinking about curing my restlessness at this stage of the game. Maybe later.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“Some are perfectly satisfied with what they have; they eat, drink, impregnate their wives, and take life as it comes. Others can never forget that they are being cheated; that life tempts them to struggle by offering them the essence of sex, of beauty, of success; and that she always seems to pay in counterfeit money.”
― Colin Wilson, The Outsider

“In the United States we think we have at our disposal virtually everything—and I emphasize the word “think.” We have big houses and cars, good medical treatment, jets, trains and monorails; we have computers, good communications, many comforts and conveniences. But where have they gotten us? We have an abundance of material things, but a successful society produces happy people, and I think we produce more miserable people than almost anyplace on earth. I’ve traveled all over the world, and I’ve never seen people who are quite as unhappy as they are in the United States. We have plenty, but we have nothing, and we always want more. In the pursuit of material success as our culture measures it, we have given up everything. We have lost the capacity to produce people who are joyful. The pursuit of the material has become our reason for living, not enjoyment of living itself.”
― Marlon Brando, Songs My Mother Taught Me

“Well, they say a good cry does you a lot of good.”
― Eugene O'Neill, The Straw

“We’re really not that different from monkeys. What’s the difference? Pants? What’s the difference between grunting and “Oh, email.”
― Marc Maron, Attempting Normal

“Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them. I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere, in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.”
― Charles Bukowski

“A writer is not a writer because he has written some books. A writer is not a writer because he teaches literature. A writer is only a writer if he can write now, tonight, this minute.”
― Charles Bukowski, On Writing

“A friend asked what he thought of marriage, and Lincoln said quietly: “My father always said, when you make a bad bargain, hug it the tighter.”
― Jim Bishop, The Day Lincoln Was Shot: A Hour-by-Hour Account of What Really Happened on April 14, 1865

“God, I thought, what about the writer? The writer was the blood and bones and brains (or lack of same) in these creatures. The writer made their hearts beat, gave them words to speak, made them live or die, anything he wanted. And where was the writer? Who ever photographed the writer? Who applauded? But just as well and damn sure just as well: the writer was where he belonged: in some dark corner, watching.”
― Charles Bukowski, Hollywood: A Semi-Autobiographical Novel About Adapting Barfly into a Screenplay and Surviving the Movie Industry