Extract from the book poor no more, of robert ruar

...The old man stopped for a moment, as pain knifed at him and slashed his face. "Look here, son," he said. "I don't owe life nothing, and life don't owe me nothing. I ain't been any worse than the usual feller, and no better. Maybe I was born in the wrong time and place. But one thing I want you to promise me. Don't go through your life with this hook-worm philosophy I always had - just settin' and lettin' it pass. Grab it and use it and kick the crap right out of it, and don't never, ever, let it run you. You treat life like it was your family. Beat it on the head and knock it around until it hollers. Make it work for you, because you going to be dead a long, long time.
"Your daddy is like me. He ain't got the guts to stand up and fight what he don't like. He is too agreeable. Don't you agree with nothing or nobody that don't please you. Kick 'em in the balls first and agree later. The Bible says turn the other cheek, but if you 're smart you'll turn it away from the slap and kick 'em in the balls. Clean fighters never wound up nowhere except hung on crosses and otherwise dead. You twist anything hard enough and it'll come around to your way of thinking and doing...  "
"That's been my main trouble. I ever had guts enough to stick to sea-goin'. I never had the guts to stick to nothing, because I was so goddamned easy and nice. I never even worked much because somebody else would work for me. I should'a been one of those bad poets or somebody with a banjo the kings hired to keep them amused. I'll be dead in a month and I can't look back to a single thing I like, except maybe the promise of you. You got enough of that butt-headed mother of yours in you to ram down a wall if it gets in your way. It's a thing we lack on my side of the fence - meanness. You got to be mean to make it, especially now, when the whole damned world is turning upside, assbackwards, down. This world ain't no place for nice people. This is for dogs eating dogs, and the biggest son-of-a-bitch wins. Help me up, son, and let me lean on you a little. I need some bed.   "