Charles Bukowski Quotes

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

It seemed better to delay thinking.

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.

I take much pleasure in being alone but there is also a strange warm grace in not being alone.

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

We are here to laugh at the odds.

Keep your money in your pocket. Or bet it on a good horse.

and love was lightning and remembrance

That's how it is with books, isn't it: They're not in a hurry. They'll wait for you till you're ready. People empty me. I have to go away to refill.

The trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up.

they say that nothing is wasted: either that or it al is

I was their bar freak, they needed me to make themselves feel better. just like, at times, I needed that graveyard.

It's hot tonight and half the neighborhood is drunk. the other half is dead. if I have any advice about writing poetry it's - don't. I'm going to send out for some fried chicken.

I suppose like others I have come through fire and sword, love gone wrong, head-on crashes, drunk at sea, and I have listened to the simple sound of water running in tubs and wished to drown

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

there is moss on the walls and the stain of thought and failure and waiting

terror finally becomes almost bearable but never quite terror creeps like a cat crawls like a cat across my mind

Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.

Lawyers, doctors, plumbers, they all made the money. Writers? Writers starved. Writers suicided. Writers went mad.

Long before I became 'rich and famous' I just sat round drinking wine and staring at the walls.

It's just that the grape has me down.

there's no defense except all the errors made

in this room the hours of love still make shadows.

my youth, one time, that time I knew even through the nothingness, it was a celebration of something not to do but only know.

there are policemen in the street and angels in the clouds

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

I remember when each 4th lot was vacant and overgrown, and the landlord only go this rent when you had it, and each day was clear and good and each moment was full of promise.

I give you soul. I give you wisdom and light and music and a bit of laughter. Also, I am the world's greatest horseplayer.

sometimes there's nothing to say about death.

One more drink and you're dead. This is no way to talk to a suicide head.

We use such big words to move nowhere.

there's no clarity. there was never meant to be clarity.

Daddy,' my mother asked, 'aren’t we going to run out of gas?' No there’s plenty of god-damned gas.' Where are we going?' I’m going to get some god-damed oranges!

The wisdom to quit is all we have left.

I didn't feel that way about it. I had been playing with death for some time. I can't say we were the best of friends but we were well acquainted.

when the phone rings I too would like to hear words that might ease some of this.

They laughed. Things were funny. They weren't afraid to care. There was no sense to life, to the structure of things.

When I'm drinking around people, I tend to get silly or pugnacious or wild, which can cause problems.

I'll use the knives for spreading jam, and the gas to warm my greying love.

I'm only interested in poetry.

you are yesterday's bouquet so sadly raided

Modern women ... they don't sew your pockets ... forget that.

I have loved you woman as surely as I have named you rust and sand and nylon.

don't be ashamed of anything; I guess God meant it all like locks on doors.

there are so many days when living stops and pulls up and sits and waits like a train on the rails.

WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.

agony sometimes changes form but it never ceases for anybody.

and then there are some who believe that old relationships can be revived and made new again. but please if you feel that way don't phone don't write don't arrive

Four days alone with nothing. Emerge empowered. The first human face you see will knock you back 50%.

Complaint is often the result of an insufficient ability to live within the obvious restrictions of this god damned cage.