Richard Brautigan

“Like some kind of strange vacuum cleaner I tried to console him. I recited the same old litanies that you say to people when you try to help their broken hearts, but words can't help at all.It's just the sound of another human voice that makes the only difference. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to make anybody happy when they're feeling shitty about losing somebody that they love.”

“In Watermelon Sugar deeds were done”

“I feel as if I am an adfor the sale of a haunted house: 18 rooms$37,000I’m yoursghosts and all.”

“A sombrero fell out of the sky and landed on the main street of town in front of the mayor, his cousin, and a person out of work. The day was scrubbed clean by the desert air. The sky was blue. It was the blue of human eyes, waiting for something to happen. There was no reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky. No airplane or helicopter was passing overhead and it was not a religious holiday.”

“I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it. She wanted her next lover to be a broom.”

“My Name“I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.That is my name.Perhaps it was raining very hard.That is my name.Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,”—and you had to do something else.That is my name.Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.That is my name.Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.That is my name.Perhaps you stared into a river. There as something near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.That is my name.”

“Gee, You're so Beautiful That It's Starting to RainOh, Marcia,I want your long blonde beautyto be taught in high school,so kids will learn that Godlives like music in the skinand sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.I want high school report cards to look like this:Playing with Gentle Glass Things AComputer Magic AWriting Letters to Those You Love AFinding out about Fish AMarcia's Long Blonde Beauty A+!”

“The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine DisasterWhen you take your pillit's like a mine disaster.I think of all the people lost inside you.”

“Your Catfish FriendIf I were to live my lifein catfish formsin scaffolds of skin and whiskersat the bottom of a pondand you were to come by one eveningwhen the moon was shiningdown into my dark homeand stand there at the edge of my affectionand think, “It's beautifulhere by this pond. I wish somebody loved me,”I'd love you and be your catfishfriend and drive such lonelythoughts from your mindand suddenly you would be at peace,and ask yourself, “I wonderif there are any catfishin this pond? It seems likea perfect place for them.”

“I saw thousands of pumpkins last nightcome floating in on the tide,bumping up against the rocks androlling up on the beaches;it must be Halloween in the sea”

“I thought about it for awhile, hiding it from the rest of my mind. But I didn't ruin my birthday by secretly thinking about it too hard”

“Hinged to forgetfulness like a door,she slowly closed out of sight,and she was the woman I loved,but too many times she slept likea mechanical deer in my caresses,and I ached in the metal silenceof her dreams.”

“Love PoemـــــــــIt's so niceto wake up in the morningall aloneand not have to tell somebodyyou love themwhen you don't love themany more.”

“I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom. I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me, so I lit a candle and listened to its comfortable voice of light until I was asleep.”

“I'm in a constant process of thinking about things. ”

“I had become so quiet and so small in the grass by the pond that I was barely noticeable, hardly there. I sat there watching their living room shining out of the dark beside the pond. It looked like a fairy-tale functioning happily in the post-World War II gothic of America before television crippled the imagination and turned people indoors and away from living out their own fantasies with dignity. Anyway, I just kept getting smaller and smaller beside the pond, more and more unnoticed in the darkening summer grass until I disappeared into the 32 years that have passed since then.”

“If you get hung up on everybody else's hang-ups, then the whole world's going to be nothing more than one huge gallows.”

“the sweet juices of your mouthare like castles bathed in honey.i've never had it done so gently before.you have put a circle of castlesaround my penis and you swirl themlike sunlight on the wings of birds.”

“I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.”

“This morning I saw a coyote walking through the sagebrush right at the very edge of the ocean ― next stop China. The coyote was acting like he was in New Mexico or Wyoming, except that there were whales passing below. That’s what this country does for you. Come down to Big Sur and let your soul have some room to get outside its marrow.”

“Once upon a valley There came downFrom some goldenblue mountainsA handsome young princeWho was riding a dawncolored horseNames Lordsburg. I love youYou’re my breathing castleGentle so gentleWe’ll live foreverIn the valley There was a beautiful maidenWhom the prince drifted into love withLike a New Mexico made from apple thunder and long glass beds. I love youYou’re my breathing castleGentle so gentleWe’ll live foreverThe prince enchantedThe maidenAnd they rode offOn the dawncolored horse Named LordsburgToward the goldenblue mountains.I love youYou’re my breathing castleGentle so gentleWe’ll live foreverThey would have lived happily ever after if the horse hadn’t had a flat tireIn front of a dragon’sHouse.”

“Probably the closest things to perfection are the huge absolutely empty holes that astronomers have recently discovered in space. If there's nothing there, how can anything go wrong?”

“because you always have a clock strapped to your body, it's natural that i should think of you as the correct time: with your long blonde hair at 8:03, and your pulse-lightning breasts at 11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30, i know i'm right.”

“We could see the children's toys here and there, and we saw a game that the children had made themselves out of dirt, deer antlers and abalone shells, but the game was so strange that only children could tell what it was. Perhaps it wasn't a game at all, only the grave of a game.”

“Je reste des heures entières debout au même endroit, presque sans bouger (j’ai même vu le vent s’arrêter dans ma main)”

“We looked like a parade barely moving toward YOU MIGHT GET LOST.”

“Elizabeth's voice had a door in it. When you opened that door you found another door, and that door opened yet another door. All the doors were nice and led out of her.”

“Night was coming on in, borrowing the light. It had started out borrowing just a few cents worth of the light, but now it was borrowing thousands of dollars worth of the light every second. The light would soon be gone, the bank closed, the tellers unemployed, the bank president a suicide.”

“We stepped outside rather hurriedly and down the street to anonymous sanctuary among the buildings of San Francisco."Promise me till your dying day, you'll believe that a Mellon was a Confederate general. It's the truth. That God-damn book lies! There was a Confederate general in my family!""I promise," I said and it was a promise that was kept.”

“Im haunted a little this evening by feelings that have no vocabulary and events that should be explained in dimensions of lint rather than words.Ive been examining half-scraps of my childhood. They are pieces of distant life that have no form or meaning. They are things that just happened like lint.”

“My God, ma'am, you're so pretty I'd walk ten miles barefooted on a freezing morning to stand in your shit.”

“The old woman had an old dog, but he hardly counted any more. He was so old that he looked like a stuffed dog. Once I took him for a walk down to the store. It was just like taking a stuffed dog for a walk. I tied him up to a stuffed fire hydrant and he pissed on it, but it was only stuffed piss.”

“He created his own Kool Aid reality and was able to illuminate himself by it.”

“For the rest of my life I'll be thinking about that hamburger. I'll be sitting there at the counter, holding it in my hands with tears streaming down my cheeks. The waitress will be looking away because she doesn't like to see kids crying when they are eating hamburgers...”

“Excuse me, I said. I thought you were a trout stream.I'm not, she said.”

“Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.1.Get enough food to eat,and eat it.2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,and sleep there.3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noiseuntil you arrive at the silence of yourself,and listen to it.4.”

“Peut-être que vous étiez allongé au lit, presque sur le point de vous endormir, et vous avez ri de quelque chose, une plaisanterie toute personnelle, une bonne façon de finir la journée. C'est ça, mon nom.”

“The bookstore was a parking lot for used graveyards. Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars. Most of the books were out of print, and no one wanted to read them any more and the people who had read the books had died or forgotten about them, but through the organic process of music the books had become virgins again.”

“خورشید مثل یک سکه پنجاه سنتی خیلی بزرگ بود که یک نفر نفت روش ریخته و کبریت کشیده و روشنش کرده و گفته "بیا اینو نگه دار تا من برم یه روزنامه بگیرم بیام"و سکه را کف دستم گذاشته و دیگر برنگشته بود(از کتاب صید قزل آلا در آمریکا)”

“Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.”

“If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago:Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.That is my name.”

“Finding is losing something else.I think about, perhaps even mourn,what I lost to find this”

“Money is sad shit”

“I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.”

“all of us have a place in history. mine is clouds.”

“In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.”