Charles Bukowski Quotes
... to die on a kitchen floor at 7 o'clock in the morning while other people are frying eggs is not so rough unless it happens to you.
They, all of them, seemed to put literary form in front of the actuality and living of life itself.
It will rain all this night and we will sleep transfixed by the dark water as our blood runs through our fragile life.
she knew what she wanted and it wasn't / me. / I know more women like that than any / other kind.
I am too sick to lay down the sidewalks frighten me the whole damned city frightens me, what I will become what I have become frightens me.
I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife inside because there was no alternative except to hide as long as possible--- not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance: trying to connect.
There's nothing else as pleasant as being unpleasant when there's nothing else to do, and there's usually nothing else to do.
as the shadows assume shapes I fight the slow retreat now my once-promise dwindling dwindling now lighting new cigarettes pouring more drinks it has been a beautiful fight still is.
I was a bore and didn't know when to smile or fake it. Or rather worse, I did but didn't.
People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be.
Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.
well, death says, as he walks by, I'm going to get you anyhow no matter what you've been: writer, cab-driver, pimp, butcher, sky-diver, I'm going to get you
if you think they didn't go crazy in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready.
The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.
I could read the great books but the great books don't interest me.
I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.
As a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.
People just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn't understand it.
Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren't sure of was if we had any.
I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.
there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock
I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.
The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.
People were usually much better in their letters than in reality. They were much like poets in this way.
yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and back down into the gut
First paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L.A. Public Library.
Meanwhile the 3 a.m. drunks of the world would lay in their beds, trying in vain to sleep, and deserving that rest, if they could find it.
of one hundred movies there's one that is fair, one that's good and ninety eight that are very bad. most movies start badly and steadily get worse
Some people have written that my writing has helped them go on. It has helped me too. The writing, the roses, the 9 cats.
people are not good to each other. perhaps if they were our deaths would not be so sad.
It was better for me when I could imagine greatness in others, even if it wasn't always there.
Sometimes there's luck, When there is you stock up on it and wait for the other times
I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.