Edward Bunker Quotes & Sayings

Your basic problem is emotional immaturity. You want life to be like in the movies, full of excitement. That's how a child's mind works, but the adults accept regularity, tedium, frustration. — Edward Bunker

But the human mind, when it reaches the bottom of the abyss, must bounce back or disintegrate entirely. — Edward Bunker

I believe that anyone who doesn't read remains dumb. Even if they know how, failing to regularly ingest the written word dooms them to ignorance, no matter what else they have or do — Edward Bunker

Decay and disfavor came together as other parts of the coast were developed, and the canals became weed-clogged ditches breeding mosquitoes, and the hotels were turned into third-rate apartments. — Edward Bunker

My letters seeking a job, though truthful, diminished the full truth. Face would blanch if the facts had been complete: "Dear Sir," I thought. "Do you have a position for a journeyman burglar, con man, forger and car thief; also with experience as armed robber, pimp, card cheat and several other things. I smoked marijuana at twelve (in the 40's) and shot heroin at sixteen. I have no experience with LSD and methedrine. They came to popularity since my imprisonment. I've buggered pretty young boys and feminine homosexuals (but only when locked up away from women). In the idiom of jails, prisons and gutters (some plush gutters) I'm a motherfucker! Not literally, for I don't remember my mother. In my world the term, used as I used it, is a boast of being hell on wheels, outrageously unpredictable, a virtuoso of crime. Of course by being a motherfucker in that world I'm a piece of garbage in yours. Do you have a job? — Edward Bunker

This was the Mecca of the American Dream, the world that everyone wanted. A world of sleek young women (allied with Slenderella to be so) in shorts and halters, driving 400-horsepower station wagons to air-conditioned, music-serenaded supermarkets of baby-sitter corporations and culture condensed into Great Books discussion groups. A life of barbecues by the swimming pool and drive in movies open all year. It did't appeal to me. Fuck health insurance plans and life insurance. They wanted to live without leaving the womb. It made me more alive to play a game without rules against society, and I was prepared to play it to the end. A tremor almost sexual passed through me as I anticipated the comming robbery. — Edward Bunker

Life was precious. Life was all that mattered. Yet it meant nothing if you weren't living as you wanted. — Edward Bunker

Hope is still ahead of you - but someday it will be behind you. That's really the point of children, to have someone to pin hope to. — Edward Bunker

One of the best things in being a criminal is having no schedule. — Edward Bunker

It is phenomenal how fast a little toot of smack will take away the agony of withdrawal and most other kinds of pain. What it cannot take away it makes meaningless. You may still have a broken arm, but somehow it doesn't matter so much. The same is true for angst and anxiety. It cancels pain so hidden that you were unaware of its existence until it disappeared. — Edward Bunker

-Poor Jerry. He's giving all of himself to something he's got to loose.
-So does everybody...sooner or later.
-Freeze on that.
-On what?
-On all that heavy philosophy bullshit. I'm talking about here and now and everyday important things that people live by. If you extrapolate everything-nothing matters. — Edward Bunker

I need a kid like I need a bad heart. A pretty kid is a ticket to trouble ... and I'm too old to ask for that. Shit, I haven't even booked Tommy the Face in two years. I'm turning into a jack-off idiot. — Edward Bunker

During the interim, no matter how much agony the man may feel, he also experiences excitement, the excitement of learning how to cope with a closed society that reflects free society as a funhouse mirror reflects the human form: everything is there, but distorted. — Edward Bunker

In three months Ron read more than he had in his entire previous life. He felt his mind widen, his perceptions become more acute, for each book was a prism refracting the infinitely varied truths of experience. Some were telescopes; some microscopes. — Edward Bunker