H.W. Charles Quotes

I could never accept life as it was, I could never gobble down all its poisons bu there were parts, tenuous magic parts open for the asking.

It was only the matter of a new voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one's self, like a fingernail.

Sweet Christ, you must know that a man will go further for any poem than for any woman ever born.

be it peace or happiness let it enfold you

Fiction is an improvement on life

the whole world is caught in her glance and at last the universe is magnificent.

There's nothing unusual about love.

In a more universal sense, we only get one thing. You know...a head stone if we're lucky; if not, green grass.

Hemingway and Saroyan had the line, the magic of it. The problem was that Hemingway didn't know how to laugh and Saroyan was filled with sugar.

I knew it would be you

You've got to rise from the floor alone or fall back alone.

Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love.

If you can only remain pure in your stupidity, someday you may get a phone call from hell.

I'm very clever at hiding poems perhaps more clever than I am at writing them.

My flesh looked like it wasn't trying. It looked like it hated being part of me.

and the color in my eyes has gone back into the sea.

There is no hurry. Time means nothing to you.

Love is a form of prejudice. I have too many other prejudices.

and our few good times will be rare because we have the critical sense and are not easy to fool with laughter

It seemed better to delay thinking.

Hey, Hank, I notice all the women around your place lately ... good looking stuff; you're doing all right." "Sam," I say, "that's not true; I am one of God's most lonely men.

I take much pleasure in being alone but there is also a strange warm grace in not being alone.

the writing of some men is like a vast bridge that carries you over the many things that claw and tear. The Wine of Forever

We are here to laugh at the odds.

Keep your money in your pocket. Or bet it on a good horse.

and love was lightning and remembrance

That's how it is with books, isn't it: They're not in a hurry. They'll wait for you till you're ready. People empty me. I have to go away to refill.

The trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up.

they say that nothing is wasted: either that or it al is

I was their bar freak, they needed me to make themselves feel better. just like, at times, I needed that graveyard.

It's hot tonight and half the neighborhood is drunk. the other half is dead. if I have any advice about writing poetry it's - don't. I'm going to send out for some fried chicken.

I suppose like others I have come through fire and sword, love gone wrong, head-on crashes, drunk at sea, and I have listened to the simple sound of water running in tubs and wished to drown

for a man of 55 who didn't get laid until he was 23 and not very often until he was 50 I think that I should stay listed via Pacific Telephone until I get as much as the average man has had

there is moss on the walls and the stain of thought and failure and waiting

terror finally becomes almost bearable but never quite terror creeps like a cat crawls like a cat across my mind

Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.

Lawyers, doctors, plumbers, they all made the money. Writers? Writers starved. Writers suicided. Writers went mad.

Long before I became 'rich and famous' I just sat round drinking wine and staring at the walls.

It's just that the grape has me down.

there's no defense except all the errors made

in this room the hours of love still make shadows.

my youth, one time, that time I knew even through the nothingness, it was a celebration of something not to do but only know.

there are policemen in the street and angels in the clouds

take a writer away from his typewriter and all you have left is the sickness which started him typing in the beginning

I remember when each 4th lot was vacant and overgrown, and the landlord only go this rent when you had it, and each day was clear and good and each moment was full of promise.

I give you soul. I give you wisdom and light and music and a bit of laughter. Also, I am the world's greatest horseplayer.

sometimes there's nothing to say about death.

One more drink and you're dead. This is no way to talk to a suicide head.

We use such big words to move nowhere.

there's no clarity. there was never meant to be clarity.