Charles Bukowski Quotes

Find what you love and let it kill you.. Charles Bukowski

Find what you love and let it kill you.

There's no way I can stop writing, it's a form of insanity.. Charles Bukowski

There's no way I can stop writing, it's a form of insanity.

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.

some moments are nice, some are nicer, some are even worth writing about.. Charles Bukowski

some moments are nice, some are
nicer, some are even worth
writing
about.

She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.. Charles Bukowski

She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.. Charles Bukowski

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.. Charles Bukowski

Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.

Life's as kind as you let it be.. Charles Bukowski

Life's as kind as you let it be.

When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer

When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.

girls
please give your
bodies and your
lives
to
the young men
who
deserve them

besides
there is
no way
I would welcome
the
intolerable
dull
senseless hell
you would bring
me

and
I wish you
luck
in bed
and
out

but not
in
mine

than

great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.

good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.

the writing of some men is like a vast bridge that carries you over the many

the writing of some
men
is like a vast bridge
that carries you
over
the many things
that claw and tear.

The Wine of Forever

unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. Charles Bukowski

unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it

nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing.. Charles Bukowski

nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.

writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all. Charles Bukowski

writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all

There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer

There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets. . . when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.

if you think they didn't go crazy in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without

if you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready.

not writing is not good but trying to write when you can't is worse.. Charles Bukowski

not writing is not good but trying to write when you can't is worse.

Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people

Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity.

Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse,

Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.

A good writer knew when not to write. Anybody could type. Not that I was a

A good writer knew when not to write. Anybody could type. Not that I was a good typist; also I couldn't spell and I didn't know grammar. But I knew when not to write. It was like fucking. You had to rest the godhead now and then.

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.

it does seem
the more we drink
the better the words
go.

I feel no grief for being called something
which
I am not;
in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a good
back rub

Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it.

That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had

That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.

Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to

Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.

MR. JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN! Don't be silly. He's an obvious sadist, I said.. Charles

MR. JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!
Don't be silly. He's an obvious sadist, I said.

I´ve given you my time. Its all I´ve got to give - its all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.

I decided to stay in bed until noon. Maybe by then half the world would be dead and it would only be half as hard to take.

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?"

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.

It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.. Charles

It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.

I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a

I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.

People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.

It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun

be it peace or happiness
let it enfold you

You gotta find what you like and let it kill you.

Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.

the gods play no
favorites.

We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.

and our few good times will be rare because we have the critical sense
and are not easy to fool with laughter

she slammed the door and
was gone.

I looked at the closed door
and at the doorknob
and strangely
I didn't feel
alone.

I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready.

in this land some of us fuck more than
we die but most of us die
better than we fuck

Dying should come easy:
like a freight train you
don't hear when
your back is
turned.

Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.

the worst thing," he told me,
"is bitterness, people end up so
bitter.

well, death says, as he walks by, I'm going to get you anyhow no matter what you've been: writer, cab-driver, pimp, butcher, sky-diver, I'm going to get you

La mayoría de la muerte de la gente es una farsa, no queda en ellos nada que pueda morir

having nothing to struggle
against
they have nothing to struggle
for.

I paid, got up, walked
to the door, opened
it.

I heard the man
say, "that guy's
nuts."

out on the street I
walked north
feeling
curiously
honored.

the gods seldom
give
but so quickly
take.

That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man.

You could sit in there all day drinking coffee and they never asked you to leave no matter how bad you looked. They just asked the bums not to bring their wine and drink it there. Places like that gave you hope when there wasn´t much hope.

sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted –
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
i get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it’s still nice to be
Bukowski.

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.

when I am feeling
low
all i have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns

If I bet on humanity, I'd never cash a ticket.

where some god pissed a rain of
reason to make things grow
only to die,

that your power of command
with simple language was
one of the magnificent things of
our century.
(from the poem: result)

we must bring
our own light
to the
darkness.

Jag föddes för att kränga rosor på de dödas avenyer

crawled like a blind slug into the
web

Mëso të mos e shkatërrosh me fjalë atë çfarë ke ndërtuar me heshtje.

Her violence frightened me. She always claimed that I was the jealous one, and I was often jealous, but when I saw things working against me I simply became disgusted and withdrew. Lydia was different. She reacted. She was the Head Cheerleader at the Game of Violence.

great books are the ones we need

I could read the great books but the great books don't interest me.

People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be.

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside - remembering all the times you've felt that way.

I don't hate people. I just feel better when they aren't around.

I began to feel like a kept man and it felt great.

the tired sunsets and the tired
people -
it takes a lifetime to die and
no time at
all.

a life can change in a tenth of
a second.
or sometimes it can take
70
years.

I didn't like anything. Maybe I was afraid. That was it - I was afraid. I wanted to sit alone in a room with the shades down. I feasted upon that. I was a crank. I was a lunatic.

Why can't you be decent to people?" she asked. "Fear," I said.

Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governments.

It was a joy! Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.

I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.

as the shadows assume
shapes
I fight the slow
retreat

now
my once-promise
dwindling
dwindling

now
lighting new cigarettes
pouring more
drinks

it has been a beautiful
fight

still
is.

since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light

hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.

Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.

jan was an excellent fuck...she had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that was killing her.

Music is much like fucking, but some composers can't climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent.

It's all overrated, man. Sex is only a great thing if you're not getting any.

for a man of 55 who didn't get laid
until he was 23 and not very often until he was 50 I think that I should stay listed via Pacific Telephone
until I get as much as the average man has had

Generally, I decided, it was better to wait, if you had any feeling for the individual. If you hated her right off, it was better to fuck her right off; if you didn't, it was better to wait, then fuck her and hate her later on.

В първата целувка, в първото чукане имаше драма. Хората бяха по-интересни в началото. По�%8

I liked to fuck too, but it wasn't my religion. There were too many ridiculous and tragic things about it. People didn't seem to know how to handle it. So they made a toy out of it. A toy that destroyed people.

Walking out with the people, I didn't know which was more exciting, the air race, the parachute jump that failed, or the cunt.

She would have been a better fuck in Greece, maybe. America was a shitty place to fuck.

You bitch," I whispered, "I love you." Then I came.

Hey, Hank, I notice all the women around your place lately ... good looking stuff; you're doing all right."

"Sam," I say, "that's not true; I am one of God's most lonely men.

the world is better without
them.

only the plants and the animals are
true comrades.

I drink to them and with
them.

when I drive the freeways I see the soul of humanity of
my city and it's ugly, ugly, ugly: the living have choked the
heart
away.

Ne të gjithë jemi duke shkuar për të vdekur, të gjithë ne, çfarë cirku! Kjo vetë duhet të na bëjë ta duam njëri-tjetrin, por kjo nuk e bën. Ne jemi të terrorizuar dhe të rrafshuar nga trivialiteti, ne jemi duke u ngrënë nga asgjëja.

Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.

My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.

There are no good wars or bad wars. The only thing bad about a war is to lose it. All wars have been fought for a so-called good Cause on both sides. But only the victor's Cause becomes history's Noble Cause. It's not a matter of who is right or who is wrong, it's a matter of who has the best generals and the better army!

the way to create art is to burn and destroy
ordinary concepts and to substitute them
with new truths that run down from the top of the head
and out of the heart

A woman is a full time job. You have to choose your profession.

To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.

you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, a**hole,
love means eventual pain
victory means eventual defeat
grace means eventual slovenliness,
there's no way
out...you see, you
understand?

agony sometimes changes
form
but
it never ceases for
anybody.

permanent living peace is
permanent living death.

she wasn't very
interesting
but few people
are.

the price of creation
is never
too high.

the price of living
with other people
always
is.

Goodness could be found sometimes in the middle of hell.

I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.

As a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.

People just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn't understand it.

I was alone with myself. And disgusting as I was it was better than being with somebody else, anybody else, all of them out there doing their pitiful little tricks and handsprings.

People lack originality.

the people are the biggest
horror show on earth,
have been for
centuries.

I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.

That is what friendship means. Sharing the prejudice of experience

...дружба - это и есть совпадение предрассудков...

I didn't know who to
believe
but
one thing I do
know: when a man is
living
many claim relationships
that are hardly
so
and after he dies, well,
then it's everybody's
party.

The good times were over. Nobody gave a shit and nobody had any money and if they had any, they kept it.

I wasn't sleeping on the streets at night. Of course, there were a lot of good people sleeping in the streets. They weren't fools, they just didn't fit into the needed machinery of the moment. And those needs kept altering.

Courage comes from the belly - all else is desperation.

the courage it took to get out of bed each
morning
to face the same things
over and over
was
enormous.

Without literature, life is hell.

Medju nama nije bilo nikakve veze, osim sto smo pili i vodili ljubav.

If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.

The old gal was only another lonely creature in a world that didn’t care

What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.

Life wore a man out, wore a man thin.
Tomorrow would be a better day.

it's good to have things done with
when they don't work
it's also good not to hate
or even forget
the person you've failed with.

He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.

What is your advice to young writers?”
“Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.

take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning

(the whole world is at the
throat of the world,
everybody feels angry,
short-changed, cheated,
everybody is despondent,
disillusioned.)

I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.

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