Charles Bukowski Quotes

there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate.

It was like a church in there as only the truly lost sit in bars on Tuesday mornings at 8:00 a.m.

but isn't there always one good thing to look back on? think of how many cups of coffee we drank together.

I like the way Mahler wandered about in his music and still retained his passion. He must have looked like an earthquake walking down the street.

I'm going to open another vottle. not a vottle, but a bottle. you open it and I'll drink it. and you try to write as much as I did without falling off of your chair.

Your parents don't give you much love, do they?' 'I don't need that stuff,' I told her. 'Henry, everybody needs love.' 'I don't need anything.' 'You poor boy.

I walk into the kitchen, look at the typer down there on the floor. It's a dirty floor. It's a dirty typer that types dirty stories

I had no Freedom. I had nothing.

Let' em learn or let' em die

It’s hard to drink when you dance. And it’s hard to dance when you drink.

well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. [...]. I want to know about things, what makes them work!

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness. . . .

Experience can dull. With most men experience is a series of mistakes; the more experience you have the less you know.

she is no longer the beautiful woman she was. she sends photos of herself sitting upon a rock by the ocean alone and damned. I could have had her once. I wonder if she thinks I could have saved her?

t was almost disappointing because it seemed when stress and madness were eliminated from my daily life there wasn't much left you could depend on.

The poet, as a rule, is a half-man - a sissy, not a real person, and he is in no shape to lead real men in matters of blood, or courage.

I used to lay drunk in alleys and I probably will again.Bukowski, who is he? I read about Bukowski and it doesn't seem like anything to do with me.

Figuring the average poet starts at 16, I am 23.

I guess for me Hemingway is a lot like it is for others: he goes down well when we are young.

A dry period for me means perhaps going two or three nights without writing. I probably have dry periods but I'm not aware of them and I go on writing, only the writing probably isn't much good.

I seldom know what I'm going to write when I sit down. There isn't much agony and sweat of the human spirit involved in doing it. The writing's easy, it's the living that is sometimes difficult.

some moments are nice, some arenicer, some are even worthwritingabout.

I drive around the streetsan inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality andpossible love.

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

If I never see you again I will always carry youinsideoutsideon my fingertipsand at brain edgesand in centerscentersof what I am ofwhat remains.

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

I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.

having nothing to struggleagainstthey have nothing to strugglefor.

be it peace or happinesslet it enfold you

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

the gods play nofavorites.

the gods seldomgivebut so quicklytake.

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

(the whole world is at thethroat of the world, everybody feels angry, short-changed, cheated, everybody is despondent, disillusioned.)I welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards ofhappiness.

she slammed the door andwas gone.I looked at the closed doorand at the doorknoband strangelyI didn't feelalone.

Dying should come easy:like a freight train youdon't hear whenyour back isturned.

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

I see a brightportionunder the overhead lightthat shades intodarknessand then into darkerdarknessand I can't see beyond that.

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

I believe that to be the world's greatest livingwriterthere must be somethingterribly wrong with you.I don't even want to be the world's greatestdead writer.just being dead would be fairenough.

waitingin a life full of little storiesfor a death to come

I paid, got up, walkedto the door, openedit.I heard the mansay, "that guy'snuts."out on the street Iwalked northfeelingcuriouslyhonored.

the best part waspulling down theshadesstuffing the doorbellwith ragsputting the phonein therefrigeratorand going to bedfor 3 or 4days. and the next bestpartwasnobody evermissedme.

Sometimes things are just what they seem to be and that's all there is to it.

when I am feelinglowall i have to do iswatch my catsand mycouragereturns

I do think that poetry is important though, if you don’t strive at it, if you don’t fill it full of stars and falseness.

it's so easy to be a poetand so hard to be a man.

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

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