Charles Bukowski Quotes

that your power of commandwith simple language wasone of the magnificent things ofour century.(from the poem: result)

we must bringour own lightto thedarkness.

I remember yoursaying: "make itor break it."neither happened anditwon't.

I wait on my fix:I am a poetry junkie.

It got so bad that Al thoughtmaybe it washimso he went to a shrinkand askedand the shrink said, "you're one of the sanest menI've ever met."poor Al.that made him feelworse than ever.

Jag föddes för att kränga rosor på de dödas avenyer

crawled like a blind slug into the web

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.

the writing of somemenis like a vast bridgethat carries youoverthe many thingsthat claw and tear.The Wine of Forever

take a writer away from his typewriterand all you have leftisthe sicknesswhich started himtypingin thebeginning

Don’t ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out

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

I had also read somewhere that if a man didn't truly believe or understand what he was espousing, somehow he could do a more convincing job

people need me. I fillthem. if they can't see mefor awhile the get desperate, they getsick.but if I see them too oftenI get sick. it's hard to feedwithout getting fed.

it's good to have things done withwhen they don't workit's also good not to hateor even forgetthe person you've failed with.

Goodness could be found sometimes in the middle of hell.

a life can change in a tenth ofa second.or sometimes it can take70years.

sometimes a man must fight so hard for life that he doesn't have time to live it.

I am too sick to lay downthe sidewalks frighten methe whole damned city frightens me, what I will becomewhat I have becomefrightens me.

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.

There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure ad moving on. Yet most people are stricken wth fear. They fear failure so much that they fail.

I love you butdon't know what todo.

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.

I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance.

I like to prowl ordinary places.I feel sorry for us all or glad for us allcaught alive togetherand awkward in that way.there's nothing better than the jokeof usthe seriousness of usthe dullness of us

Do you hate people?”“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.

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

You're the most unknown famous man I ever met

There's too much coldness in the world, " I told her. "If people would only talk things out together it would help.

I don't know. It's been terribly hard for me. How do I know you won't do it again?''Nobody is ever quite sure of what they will do. You aren't sure what you might do.

When women agree with me I always do the other thing

I'm not a guru. I wish you wouldn't pose these things at me, man. Ask me about women or something.

good weatheris likegood women—it doesn’t always happenand when it doesit doesn’talways last.

Education was the new god, and educated men the new plantation masters.

All we do is sleep, and eat and lay around and make love. We're like slugs. Slug-love, I call it.

that's what kills a man: lack of change.

the way to create art is to burn and destroyordinary concepts and to substitute themwith new truths that run down from the top of the headand out of the heart

if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou, then wait patiently.if it never does roar out of you, do something else.

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 total ugliness and indifference of the worst features of the human race come out in their driving habits.

the first place smelled like work, so I took the second

you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, a**hole, love means eventual painvictory means eventual defeatgrace means eventual slovenliness, there's no wayout...you see, youunderstand?

my gardenin the sun and in the rainand in the day and in the nightpain is a flowerpain is flowersblooming all the time.

that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers - they don't feel a hell of a lot except their own comfort or their own pain. which is normal but shitty.

Ya got cigarettes?” she asks. “Yes, ” I say, “I got cigarettes.” “Matches?” she asks.“Enough to burn Rome.” “Whiskey?”“Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River of pain.” “You drunk?” “Not yet.

all people start tocome apart finallyand there it is:just empty ashtrays in a roomor wisps of hair on a combin the dissolving moonlight.

the courage it took to get out of bed eachmorningto face the same thingsover and overwasenormous.

if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything, don’t do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut, don’t do it.

I write fiction""What’s fiction?""Fiction is an improvement on life.

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