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It would take me all night to tell about Old Bull Lee; let's just say now, he was a teacher, and it may be said that he had every right to teach because he spent all his time learning; and the things he learned were what he considered to be and called "the facts of life," which he learned, not only out of necessity but because he wanted to. He dragged his long, thin body around the entire United States and most of Europe and North Africa in his time, only to see what was going on.... there are pictures of him with the international cocaine set of the thirties — gangs with wild hair, leaning on one another, there are other pictures of him in a Panama hat, surveying the streets of Algiers.... He was an exterminator in Chicago, a bartender in New York, a summons-server in Newark. In Paris he sat at cafe tables, watching the sullen French faces go by. In Athens he looked up from his ouzo at what he called the ugliest people in the world. In Istanbul he threaded his way through crowds of opium addicts and rug-sellers, looking for the facts. In Chicago he planned to hold up a Turkish bath, hesitated just for two minutes too long for a drink, and, wound up with two dollars and had to make a run for it. He did all these things merely for the experience....
--
Jack Kerouac, about a character said to be based upon Burroughs, in On the Road (1957)

 

William S. Burroughs

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Richard went to Paris in 1946, when I was 22, he was 38. Now, it took me a long time; I had to get to be much older to realize something. I didn't realize it that day at all. I was not born in Mississippi; I was born in New York. And I did not leave Mississippi to go to Chicago. And endure all that. I was much too young to realize what I was looking at really. But, that's a journey. To go from Mississippi to Chicago to New York to Paris in 38 years is amazing. You might as well have walked all that distance, it's almost that remarkable.

 

Richard Wright

 

The bare bones of my life are almost unbearable. I was born during the First World War. I spent my adolescence in the Depression, and when I came of age, I was involved in the Second World War. That sounds a pretty horrible series of events. They seem perfectly natural to me. I prize the Depression, for instance, because I learned the value of things in the Depression that a way people who don't have to worry about such things never learned to prize it really, I believe. And the Second World War was a wonderful thing to be with. It's now called "the Good War." We usually referred to it as "this damned war." We didn't think of it as a good war. We did believe it was fought in a good cause.

 

Shelby Foote

 

Some of the pictures I work on a long time and they look as if I’ve knocked them out, you know, and there are other pictures that come off right away. The immediacy can be accomplished in a picture that’s been worked on for a long time just as well as if it’s been done rapidly, you see. But I don’t find that any of these things prove anything really.

 

Franz Kline

 

"So I'm sittin' in Nashville Tennessee, it's a Wednesday night - and I'm wrestling on pay per view. maybe you've heard of it, "NWA:TNA." Around Thursday at 5:59 at night I fly to Chicago. From Chicago I fly to Heathrow, from Heathrow I fly to Germany. This is the absolute WORST trip of my entire life... and I travel a LOT. See I've been all over the world. I've been to Puerto Rico, I've been to Japan, I've been to Mexico, I've wrestled in South Africa, I've wrestled in Asia. I've wrestled from the tip of Antarctica down to Antar- I've been everywhere. My plane comin' into Chicago is late. I gotta' hustle halfway across O'Hare Airport. I've got people *laughin'* at me, because a seventy-year-old man who's on the same flight as me made it to the flight to Heathrow first. So I get to Heathrow, and the lady at the BMI counter tells me to stand in line at the Luftstansa counter because that's who handles the German flights. Well I stood in line for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES and had to listen to all these little Irish pipsqueaks complain that something's wrong with *their* passports. And when I *FINALLY* get out there, I *FINALLY* get to the counter, my plane's leaving in nine minutes and they tell me I can't get on it. You know what I did? You know what I did because of who I am, CM Punk? Because I'm drug free and alcohol free? I *took* my bags, I even picked up a little old lady who needed the lift... and I RAN to my gate, and I GOT there in time, and they PUT me on that plane -- 'cause I am a LEGEND, I am a superstar. And I get to Germany. I get here and I have to put up with the SAME crap that I have to put up with in America. "Chris Hero." Chris Hero, you beat me ONE TIME, and I had a hundred and fourteen degree temperature and the GOUT. This is no laughing matter. Germany, you made a name for yourself... this is your home. This is the first time I'm here. And what's CM Punk known for doin? BEATING THE ODDS. Today, sixty-minute Iron Man Match... I'm gonna' pin you sixty seven times and it STILL won't matter. No matter how many times you pin me, if i let you, I am STILL better than you. Because *I AM* drug free, *I AM* alcohol free, and I'm straightedge. And I'm better than you."

 

Phil Brooks

 

Back around 1971, I was playing in a bar in Chicago one night, and after the show, I was packing up my guitar and stuff, and I was walking out the door, and a little guy stopped me. And he said, "Arlo, before you leave, I wanna sing you a song." I said "Come on man, I don't wanna hear no songs. I hate songs. I don't even like my songs! Why should I like your songs?" I was just tired, I wanted to get out of there, I was being a butt-head. He said, "Arlo, I just wanna sing you one song." I said, "Tell you what. Buy me beer. I'll sit here and drink it. As long as it lasts, you can do whatever you want." He said, "That sounds like a good deal. I said "It does?" It turned out to be one of the finer beers of my entire life.

 

Arlo Guthrie