#10 - BEER SHIT

“There was nothing really as glorious as a good beer shit—I mean after drinking twenty or twenty-five beers the night before. The odor of a beer shit like that spread all around and stayed for a good hour-and-a-half. It made you realize that you were really alive.”
—Ham on Rye, 1982

#09 - AMBITION

"It was true that I didn't have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"
—Factotum, 1975

#08 - DUEL TO THE DEATH

"Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death...in a cesspool."
—Women, 1978

#07 - THE ROAD AHEAD

"I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn't particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn't have to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall me, it sickened me . . . To do things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day . . . was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep."
—Ham on Rye, 1982

#06 - DRIVEN TO DRINK

"The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn't interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative."
—Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews & Encounters 1963-1993, 2003

#05 - BORN AGAIN

"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."
—Interview, London Magazine, December 1974-January 1975

#04 - LONER

"I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores."
—Women, 1978

#03 - SAVE THE WHALE

"This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that . . . Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don’t wanna do. All the things that I don’t wanna be. Places I don’t wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don’t understand that . . ."
—Barfly, 1987

#02 - NOTHING LEFT

"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."
—The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998

#01 - NATION OF ASSHOLES

"The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. 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."
—Ham on Rye, 1982

Read more here

• Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
• Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.
• Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.
• Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
• Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
• He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting "All the Gods are bastards."
• In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
• In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
• It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.
• It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren't doing.
• Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
• Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out til too late that he's been playing with two queens all along.
• Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
• Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
• Sooner or later we're all someone's dog.
• Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.
• The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.
• The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.
• The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
• The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
• They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.
• Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.
• You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
  

• Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.
• You only lose what you cling to.
• Fill your mind with compassion.
• We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.
• The Four Reliances
  First, rely on the spirit and meaning of the teachings, not on the words;
  Second, rely on the teachings, not on the personality of the teacher;
  Third, rely on real wisdom, not superficial interpretation;
  And fourth, rely on the essence of your pure Wisdom Mind, not on judgmental perceptions.
• We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.
• To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.
• Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.
• Pay no attention to the faults of others,
  things done or left undone by others.
  Consider only what by oneself is done or left undone.
• What we think, we become.
• Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.
• Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others.
• He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.
• An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind
• Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.
• Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.
• Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
• On life's journey Faith is nourishment,
  Virtuous deeds are a shelter,
  Wisdom is the light by day and Right mindfulness is the protection by night.
  If a man lives a pure life nothing can destroy him;
  If he has conquered greed nothing can limit his freedom.
• One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the messiah?"
  "No", answered Buddha.
  "Then are you a healer?"
  "No", Buddha replied.
  "Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted.
  "No, I am not a teacher."
  "Then what are you?" asked the student, exasperated.
  "I am awake", Buddha replied.

A Few Maxims For The Instruction Of The Over-Educated by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Education is an admirable thing.  But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
• Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.
• The English are always degrading truths into facts.  When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.
• It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
• The only link between Literature and Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.
• In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public.  Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.
• Most women are so artificial that they have no sense of Art.  Most men are so natural that they have no sense of Beauty.
• Friendship is far more tragic than love.  It lasts longer.
• What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art.  It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art.
• A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist.  It lacks imperfection.
• The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious.  The only thing that the public can see is the obvious.  The result is the Criticism of the Journalist.
• Art is the only serious thing in the world.  And the artist is the only person who is never serious.
• To be really mediæval one should have no body.  To be really modern one should have no soul.  To be really Greek one should have no clothes.
• Dandyism is the assertion of the absolute modernity of Beauty.
• The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance.  The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.
• One should never listen.  To listen is a sign of indifference to one's hearers.
• Even the disciple has his uses.  He stands behind one's throne, and at the moment of one's triumph whispers in one's ear that, after all, one is immortal.
• The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them.  They are so far away from us that only the poet can understand them.
• Those whom the gods love grow young.
  

You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.

You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."

There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."

Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.

"There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."

Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

You will forget all this.

• If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?
• It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is rarely a mistake. (Mencken)
• Odd things, animals. Dogs look up to you. Cats look down to you. Only pigs see you as an equal' (Churchill)
• Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. (Hanlon)
• Everyone rises to his level of incompetence. (the Peter principle)
• The meek may inherit the earth - but not its mineral rights. (Getty)
• ... a difficulty for every solution'' (Samuel, on the Civil Service)
• There will be no more misery... when the world is our rotisserie.  (Tom Lehrer)
• Midget psychic escapes prison: small medium at large
• Democracy is... the worship of jackals by jackasses. (Mencken)
• EC institutions have produced European beets, butter, cheese, wine, veal and even pigs. But they have not produced Europeans. (Weiss)
• Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. (Hubbard)
• ... a place where the money falls apart in your hands, but you can't tear the toilet paper. (Wilder, on France)
• Early to rise and early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead. (Thurber)

• God is a comedian, playing to an audience that's too afraid to laugh.'' (Voltaire)
• People who make no mistakes do not usually make anything.
• [A pessimist is] someone who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.'' (Shaw)
• A little inaccuracy can save tons of explanation.'' (Saki)
• All human actions are equivalent, and all are doomed to failure.'' (Sartre)
• A cynic is a man who, upon smelling flowers, looks around for a coffin.'' (Mencken)
• Curiosity kills more mice than cats.
• Culture is, roughly, anything we do which the monkeys don't.'' (Raglan)
• Birth, n., the first and direst of all disasters. (Bierce)
• Blow your mind. Smoke gunpowder.
• Everything that is not forbidden is compulsory.'' (Gell-Mann)
• Glory may be fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
• History repeats itself; historians repeat each other.'' (Guedella)
• History is the sum total of things which could have been avoided.''(Adenauer)
• Humankind cannot bear very much reality.'' (Elliot)