What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire Quotes

“morning, it touches the nerves quickly as if we were already in the hunter’s sights. the body yawns and stretches in the light. the pilgrimage is about to begin.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“if only we were crazy enough to be willing to ignore our mechanical and static perceptions we’d know that a half-filled coffee cup holds more secrets than, say, the Grand Canyon.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“I guess what makes me feel better are the truly sane: the motorcycle cop in a clean uniform who gives me a ticket and then rides away on two wheels like a man who never had an itchy crotch.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“I got the blues. I got the blues. that dog loved and trusted me and I let it walk away.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“and each temporary escape
has a permanent price.
neither drink nor love
will
see you through.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“he had outwitted me:
praise was the only thing I couldn't
handle”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“and when love came to us twice and lied to us twice we decided to never love again that was fair fair to us and fair to love itself.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a graveyard.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“as the night darkened I’d go back to Pershing Square and sit on the benches and watch and listen to the people. the winos on the lawn passed bottles of muscatel and port about as the war rushed toward us.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“and my life was touched by magic. and it still is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“you’re doing 19 and 1/2 years I’ve been writing about 40. we all go on with our things. we all go on with our lives. we all write badly at times or live badly at times. we all have bad days and nights.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“the word should be like butter or avocados or steak or hot biscuits, or onion rings or whatever is really needed. it should be almost as if you could pick up the words and eat them.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“lifedance the area dividing the brain and the soul is affected in many ways by experience— some lose all mind and become soul: insane. some lose all soul and become mind: intellectual. some lose both and become: accepted.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“war was good so long as you won.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“to be writing poetry at the age of 50 like a schoolboy, surely, I must be crazy;”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“in the sun and in the rain and in the day and in the night pain is a flower pain is flowers blooming all the time.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“kimi beynini yitirip
ruha dönüşür:
deli.
kimi ruhunu yitirip
beyne dönüşür:
entelektüel.
kimi ikisini de yitirir ve
kabul görür.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“what she doesn't realize is
that - usually - only boring people
get bored.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“the night was beginning
and i was standing before the
plate glass window of a
restaurant
and in that window
was a roasted pig,
eyeless,
with an apple in its mouth.
poort damned pig.
poor damned me.
beyond the pig
inside there
were people
sitting at tables
talking, eating, drinking
i was not one of those people
i felt a kinship with the pig
we had been caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time
i imagined myself in the window
eyeless, roasted, the apple in my mouth
…
i walked away from the window
i walked to my room
i still had a room
as i walked to my room
i began to conjecture:
could i eat some paper?
some newspaper?
roaches?
maybe i could catch a rat?
a raw rat?
peel off the fur,
remove the intestines
remove the eyes
forego the head, the tail
…
i walked along.
i was so hungry that everything
looked eatable:
people, fireplugs, asphalt,
wristwatches … my belt, my shirt
…
i sat in a chair
i din’t turn on the light
i sat there and wondered if i was crazy
because i wasn’t doing anything
to help myself

the hunger stopped then
and i just sat there
then i heard it:
two people in the next room
copulating.
i could hear the bed spring
and the moans
i got up, walked out of the
room and back into the street.
but i walked in a different
direction this time
i walked away from the pig
in the window
but i thought about the pig
and i decided that i’d die first
rather than eat that
pig.
it began to rain
i looked up.
i opened my mouth and let in the rain
drops… soup from the sky...”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire