Writing isn't what it used to be. Blogs have ruined it, some say. Others say my dumb-founded generation, and the generation preceding it ruined it before that. This is too big of an issue to tackle in a blog post, but I wanted to share two prime examples of exceptionally good writing, from the modern era (last thirty years or so). I won't ruin them by explaining why I think they're great piece of writing, so that's up for you to decide. Here they are:

"…off to the right of this typewriter, on the floor between the beds, I can see an 8×10 print of Frank Mankiewicz yelling into a telephone at the Democratic Convention in Miami; but that one will never be used, because the god-damn hound put five big claw-holes in the middle of Frank's chest."

– from Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

"I shaved carefully with an old razor

the man who had once been young and

said to have genius; but

that's the tragedy of the leaves,

the dead ferns, the dead plants;
and I walked into a dark hall
where the landlady stood
execrating and final,
sending me to hell,
waving her fat, sweaty arms
and screaming
screaming for rent
because the world has failed us
both"

– from Charles Bukowski's The Tragedy of the Leaves