Richard Brautigan Quotes

51 Sourced Quotes

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.

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

Richard Brautigan
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.

Richard Brautigan
I saw thousands of pumpkins last night come floating in on the tide, bumping up against the rocks and rolling up on the beaches; it must be Halloween in the sea

Richard Brautigan
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.

Richard Brautigan
We looked like a parade barely moving toward YOU MIGHT GET LOST.

Richard Brautigan
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster When you take your pill it's like a mine disaster. I think of all the people lost inside you.

Richard Brautigan
A Boat O beautiful was the werewolf in his evil forest. We took him to the carnival and he started crying when he saw the Ferris wheel. Electric green and red tears flowed down his furry cheeks. He looked like a boat out on the dark water.

Richard Brautigan
There are seductions that should be in the Smithsonian Institute, right next to The Spirit of St. Louis.

Richard Brautigan
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.

Richard Brautigan
Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.

Richard Brautigan
A friend came over to the house
a few days ago and read one of my poems.
He came back today and asked to read the
same poem over again. After he finished
reading it, he said, "It makes me want to write poetry."

Richard Brautigan
I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.

Richard Brautigan
Burn all the maps to your body. I'm not here of my own choosing.

Richard Brautigan
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.

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

Richard Brautigan
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.

Richard Brautigan
I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.

Richard Brautigan
You've got some 'Star-Spangled' nails in your coffin, kid. That's what they've done for you, son.

Richard Brautigan
Forsaken, fucking in the cold,
eating each other, lost
runny noses,
complaining all the time
like so many
people
that we know

Richard Brautigan
If a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think: Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
Instead of me.

Richard Brautigan