Charles Bukowski Quotes

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.

Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.

The crowd is the gathering place of the weakest; true creation is a solitary act.

Let it die. Let there be a new beginning. It’s awful. Goodnight.

Writing is like going to bed with a beautiful woman and afterwards she gets up, goes to her purse and gives me a handful of money.

I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

Insanity is relative. Who sets the norm?

People empty me. I have to get away to refill.

The wisest thing to do if you’re living in hell is to make yourself comfortable.

I walked around the block twice, passed 200 people and failed to see a human being.

If I never see you again I will always carry you inside outside on my fingertips and at brain edges and in centers centers of what I am of what remains.

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad.

If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.

I am not like other people. I am burning in hell. The hell of myself.

It's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse... no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies... not the death of his love but the shoelace that snaps with no time left.

Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself.

An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way

But my whole life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.

People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.

Are you becoming what you've always hated?

Drinking is another way of thinking, another way of living. It gives you two lives instead of one.

Those faces you see every day on the streets were not created entirely without hope: be kind to them: like you they have not escaped.

There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little.

one more creature dizzy with love

Don't wait for the good woman. She doesn't exist.

You've got to know when to let a woman go if you want to keep her,and if you don't want to keep her you let her go anyhow so it's always a process of letting go, one way or the other.

An early taste of death is not necessarily a bad thing.

I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.

Bullfighting can be an art Boxing can be an art Loving can be an art Opening a can of sardines can be an art

You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it.

I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love, and how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me.

I have gotten so used to melancholia that I greet it like an old friend.

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it

The crazy ones only laugh when there is no reason to laugh.

I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.

It’s never quite right, all the things we are taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we die, all the lives we live.

the tigers have found me and I do not care.

People were interesting at first. Then later, slowly but surely, all the flaws and madness would manifest themselves. I would become less and less to them; they would mean less and less to me.

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

You have my soul and I have your money

being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.

The Difference Between Art and Life is that Art is More Bearable

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.

Drink from the well of yourself and begin again.

Bad poetry is caused by people who sit down and think, Now I am going to write a Poem.

I was beaten down long ago in some alley in another world.

It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.

I want so much that is not here and do not know where to go.

True revolution comes from true revulsion; when things get bad enough the kitten will kill the lion.