„Maybe I could live by my wits. The eight-hour day was impossible, yet almost everybody submitted to it. And the war, everybody was talking about the war in Europe. I wasn’t interested in world history, only in my own. What crap. Your parents controlled your growing-up period, they pissed all over you. Then when you got ready to go out on your own, the others wanted to stick you into a uniform so you could get your ass shot off. […]

The war. Here I was a virgin. Could you imagine getting your ass blown off for the sake of history before you even knew what a woman was? Or owned an automobile? What would I be protecting? Somebody else. Somebody else who didn’t give a shit about me. Dying in a war never stopped wars from happening.”

Charles Bukowski: „Ham on Rye“ (1982), S. 325

„[…] die Welt ist wie ein verstimmtes, eigentlich schrottreifes Klavier. Wenn man da Beethoven-Sonaten spielen will oder irgendwas, was es schon gibt, dann kann das nur schiefgehen. Wenn man aber gar nichts will, sondern herausfindet, welche Töne noch brauchbar sind, dann kann man auch auf einem Schrottklavier Musik machen. man muss nur improvisieren.“

Dietrich Brüggemann: „Materialermüdung“ (2022), S. 22