Charles Bukowski Quotes

life itself is not the miracle. that pain should be so constant, that's the miracle -

we had such tremendous fun and much agony together for some years

she was consumed by 3 simple things: drink, despair, loneliness; and 2 more: youth and beauty

i am going to start selling air in dark orange bags marked: moon-blooms

I went home each night dizzy and sick. He was murdering me with the sound of his voice.

Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with their lives and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn't so.

we sat there smoking cigarettes at 5 in the morning.

I can't blame her. but wonder why she's here with me? where are the other guys? how can you be lucky? having someone the others have abandoned?

eleven months. now she's gone gone as they go.

my 6 foot goddess makes me laugh the laughter of the mutilated who still need love... she has saved me from everything that is not here

I broke that town in half like a wooden match.

I'm too careless. I don't put out enough effort. I'm tired.

The human heart, as of course we all know is essentially good

the sea is made of blood

And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.

they thought I had guts they were wrong I was only frightened of more important things

and getting dressed we talk about what else there might be to do, but being together solves most of it, in fact, solves all of it

there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone.

there must be a way. surely there must be a way that we have not yet thought of. who put this brain inside of me? it cries it demands it says that there is a chance. it will not say "no.

The world had somehow gone too far, and spontaneous kindness could never be so easy.

There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death.

Was I the only person who was distracted by this future without a chance?

human relationships simply aren't durable. I think back to the women in my life. they seem non-existent.

Love dries up, I thought as I walked back to the bathroom, even faster than sperm.

it doesn't matter if Prince Charles falls off his horse or that the hummingbird is so seldom seen or that we are too senseless to go insane. coffee. give us more of that NOTHING coffee.

Well, the rain had stopped but the pain was still there.

this time has finished me.

Of course, there would always be arguments. That is the nature of Woman. They like the mutual exchange of dirty laundry, a bit of screaming, a bit of dramatics. Then an exchange of vows.

the masses are everywhere they know how to do things: they have sane and deadly angers for sane and deadly things.

and even the trees we walked under seemed less than trees and more like everything else.

Why do we embroider everything we say with special emphasis when all we really need to do is simply say what needs to he said? Of course the fact is that there is very little that needs to be said.

from the beginning, through the middle years and up to the end: too bad, too bad, too bad.

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

I can see where creation often stops while the body still lives and often does not care to. the death of life before life dies.

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

you fall into the mirror, come through the other side staring at a lightbulb.

but right now it's Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Bob Dylan all the way.

I've found out why men sign their names to their works- not that they created them but more than the others did not.

Humanity, you never had it from the beginning." That was my motto.

my hands dead my heart dead silence adagio of rocks the world ablaze that's the best for me.

That the young rich smell the stink of the poor and learn to find it a bit amusing. They had to laugh, otherwise it would be too terrifying.

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 was always high on drugs. I was not a drug man, but in case I wanted to hide from myself for a few days, I knew I could get anything I wanted from him.

It is possible to be truly mad and to still exist upon scraps of life.

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

but as God said, crossing his legs, I see where I have made plenty of poets but not so very much poetry.

nobody ever finds the one

When Ginsburg is at the top of his game you might as well put down your toys and listen.

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

As we go on with our lives we tend to forget that the jails and the hospitals and the madhouses and the graveyards are packed.