#Ham on Rye

[quotespile]

I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[litsnaps]

[belamercado]

I had no interests. I had no interests in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn't let me.

- Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[trees-and-planets]

— Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[audiemurphy1945]

Once we were in a drug store and my mother and I were standing to one side while my father yelled at a clerk. Another clerk asked my mother, “Who is that horrible man? Every time he comes in here there’s an argument.” “That’s my husband,” my mother told the clerk. Yet, I remember another time. He was working as a milkman and made early morning deliveries. One morning he awakened me. “Come on, I want to show you something.” I walked outside with him. I was wearing my pajamas and slippers. It was still dark, the moon was still up. We walked to the milk wagon which was horsedrawn. The horse stood very still. “Watch,” said my father. He took a sugar cube, put it in his hand and held it out to the horse. The horse ate it out of his palm. “Now you try it…” He put a sugar cube in my hand. It was a very large horse. “Get closer! Hold out your hand!” I was afraid the horse would bite my hand off. The head came down; I saw the nostrils; the lips pulled back, I saw the tongue and the teeth, and then the sugar cube was gone. “Here. Try it again…” I tried it again. The horse took the sugar cube and waggled his head. “Now,” said my father, “I’ll take you back inside before the horse shits on you.”

- Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye, 1982

[quotes--and--lyrics]

“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.”

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[daintytrollop]

[tamsoj]

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[drownsingreentea]

“i’d decided the campus was just a place to hide.”

[ambigg]

[quotespile]

The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no people, nothing.

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[asoftepiloguemylove]

"I considered suicide, but I felt a strange fondness for my body, my life. Scarred as they were, they were mine."

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[the-beauty-in-chaos-quotes]

"I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn't let me."

- Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

[bonniehooper]

Top Picks of 2022

My Top 25 New Favorite Actresses - #25: Yasmeen Fletcher

Introduction to Her: Ms. Marvel

[audiemurphy1945]

He even got up once in English class and read an essay called “The Value of Friendship,” and while he was reading it he kept glancing at me. It was a stupid essay, soft and standard, but the class applauded when he finished, and I thought, well, that’s what people think and what can you do about it? I wrote a counter-essay called, “The Value of No Friendship At All.” The teacher didn’t let me read it to the class. She gave me a “D.”

- Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye, 1982

[el-im]