Abe Mortenson was had enough to be around but he was just a fool. You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn’t deceive anybody. It’s the deceivers who make y...

I went with two ladies down to Venice to look for antique furniture. I parked in back of the store and went in with them.

They had me in the counselor’s office in one of the back rooms of the second floor. “Let me see how you look, Chinaski.” He looked at me. “All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to know whe...

the motion of the human heart: strangled over Missouri; sheathed in hot wax in Boston; burned like a potato in Norfolk; lost in the Allegheny Mountains;

I remember the Model-T. Sitting high, the running boards seemed friendly, and on cold days, in the mornings, and often at other times, my father had to fit the hand-crank into the front...

the canaries were there, and the l… and the old woman with warts; and I was there, a child and I touched the piano keys as they talked—

you’ve got to fuck a great many wo… beautiful women and write a few decent love poems. and don’t worry about age and/or freshly-arrived talents.

I don’t know how many bottles of b… I have consumed while waiting for… to get better. I don’t know how much wine and whi… and beer

a woman told a man when he got off a plane that I was dead. a magazine printed the fact that I was dead

We were eating meatballs and spaghetti. My problems were always discussed at dinner time. Dinner time was almost always an unhappy time. I didn’t answer my father’s question. “Henry, an...

love, he said, gas kiss me off kiss my lips kiss my hair my fingers

That Tuesday night we were sitting at my place drinking; Tammie, me and her brother, Jay. The phone rang. It was Bobby. “Louie and his wife are down here and she’d like to meet you.” Lo...

we were in bed and she started to fight: “you son of a bitch! you just wait… I’ll get you!” I began laughing: