Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-American short story writer, poet, and novelist. He was one of those creative writers who used his poetry and verse to portray American society's condition. He wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, six novels and published over 60 books.
Charles was born on August 16, 1920, at Andernach, Prussia, Germany. He was brought to the United States at the age of two. His father believed in firm discipline, so he would often beat Charles for all the small offenses. In 1939 he started attending the Los Angeles City College. He left his college for becoming a writer and moved to New York.
At the age of 24, his short story "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip" was published in Story magazine. Two years later, another short story, "20 Tanks from Kasseldown", was published by Black Sun Press. He continued to keep on writing for the next few years. But around 1946, he decided to stop writing as he failed to mark the literary world and went on a ten-year journey that took him across the country. This ten-year is referred to as "ten-year drunk."
By 1950 he started working as a fill-in letter carrier with the United States Post Office Department in Los Angeles. However, he did resign from this job before reaching the three years' service. After being treated for an ulcer, he left the hospital and started writing poetry. Several of his poems were published in Gallows which was a small poetry magazine published by Jon Griffith. Two of his poems were featured in Nomad's inaugural issue in 1959. After a year, Nomad published his best-known essays Manifesto: A Call for Our Own Critics.
By 1960, he returned to the position of the post office in Los Angeles. Hearse Press kept on publishing his poems starting from "His Wife, the Painter" and continued to do so until the 1980s. Later the publishers of The Outsider literary magazine did feature some of his poetry in its pages. Charles and Neeli Cherkovski launched their own mimeographed literary magazine Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns, and did create three issues over the next two years.
After accepting an offer from Black Sparrow Press publisher, he quit his post office job and dedicated himself to full-time writing. He published all his works with the same press that made publisher Martin's business due to his high editing skills. Throughout his entire career, he kept on submitting short stories and poems to various small publishers. In Germany, he did perform a live poetry reading of his work before an audience in Hamburg. Later on, he did collaborate with cartoonist Robert Crumb on a series of comic books.
On March 9, 1994, he died of leukaemia in San Pedro after completing his last novel Pulp. The funeral rites were which was organized by his widow was conducted by Buddhist Monks. He surely was a strong-headed person.
Following are some of the best Charles Bukowski Quotes on Love, Life, Sadness, Death and Friendship to start your day afresh.
We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
People tend to get nervous and often fear when we conflict with ourselves. It gets difficult to decide as the conclusion gets pretty difficult and leads to utter confusion.
Charles says that we people need to laugh at all the conflicts in our life. Isn't it amazing as we often do not have the courage even to smile? It means that when you are in a situation where you do not know what to do, just start laughing. Even though you may feel like an idiot but keep on laughing.
After some time, you may start feeling better and be in the proper state of mind, helping you make decisions. Then start living your life to the fullest. Live your life as you have always wanted to. And then start living it in such a way that even death will tremble to hold our hands.
If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.
To love someone is to care, understand and have respect towards the other person. It is to put other's needs before you. You need to have that feeling from within, as loving someone is a different feeling altogether.
This quote says that if a person can love someone, then he should start loving himself at first. Loving yourself is the most important thing as when you start to care about yourself, you understand the value of love.
Loving ourselves is important as it helps us to gain confidence. It shows us that with self-love, any goal can be achieved, and any challenge can be faced easily. It means to put your physical and mental health at first which is a must. And when you start to care about yourself, you do make choices for your good.
The simple truth is until you don't care about yourself, you cannot care about others. So, start loving yourself as it works wonders for you.
I don't hate people. I just feel better when they aren't around.
This quote is a poetic way to say the hatred he has for others. He has simply put it in a way that makes it much better to read. Also, hatred is a very big word, so he has arranged it to give us good laugh when we read it.
Charles says that he doesn't loathe people. As he was a man who was good with his words, he has put the word hate in such a way that it looks better when read. He doesn't particularly dislike a person but feels better when the person is not near to him. This means the same thing.
As when we hate a person, we do not want that person around us. We feel anger, and our mood gets spoiled. We feel depressed and often spend much of our time fixing our anger. With all the bad experiences piled up and the negative thoughts triggered, we become a different person altogether.
Therefore, try not to hate people as they change you as a person.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
In our life, we do face many situations which may make you feel terrified. You may feel scared when you go through horrible situations. It makes you weak and may drown you in the pool of emotions.
This quote says that the most important thing in your life is to know how to walk through terrifying circumstances. Most people find it painful to deal with these types of situations. You should have the courage to take that one step and walk through the path.
As life will surely not be easy, but you just need to have belief and confidence in yourself. All that matters is how effectively you tread the dangerous lane. What makes it more interesting is how well you perform in these grave situations.
So, when life gives you a bouncer, hit it so hard that at least it crosses the boundary.
Continue reading some more Charles Bukowski Quotes....
Being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.
To be alone is a feeling to live our life without anyone or anything else. It means not to involve anyone to interfere in your life. It is a very complicated emotion that makes simple things difficult.
Charles says that being alone never felt fair. At times, to be lonely feels good as sometimes, everyone needs a bit of privacy when too many people surrounding you can sometimes be very irritating.
To be right and being good is two different things. We often get confused between these two. When something is right for you, you need that thing throughout your life. To feel good is something that keeps on changing according to the situation you are in. So, rather than feeling good over something, you just need to have that one correct thing for you.
Therefore, never crave being alone, as at some point in your life, you may need a companion. Do not wait until it's too late.
Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.
This quote talks about the process of poetry creation. It says what poetry is—the way poetry is penned down from your thoughts and put together on paper.
Poetry is difficult to interpret as it consists of the expression of your thoughts in short lines. It requires the readers to be very attentive to understand it in detail. The prose is very direct and is written in the same language that is spoken in the era.
It means that when you pull out certain words and sentences that you often hear and speak together and combine them, poetry is created. When you do not understand how to put certain words together into sentences, just arrange them according to what you feel. And then magic is created, which is called poetry.
Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.
There are days in a person's life when they feel like it is impossible to reach the end of the road. A feeling of horror does come to your mind even if you think about it.
Charles says that at times when you are about to begin your day, you start to think about the impending task you need to perform. You have a feeling that you cannot complete it. But in the back of your mind, you smile when you reminisce about all those days you have felt the same.
It means that there will be situations in life that keep on repeating like a cycle. And every time the situation occurs you feel like an impossible task. But then you look back at those times when you did conquer the same.
Therefore, think of each day as a new beginning and do the impossible.
A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.
Love is something that cannot be explained in a sentence or even a paragraph or even a book. It is a four-letter word that needs to be felt from within. It is a feeling which you need to experience by yourself.
In this quote, love is compared to an illness that is too serious. When we speak about an illness, we need to understand that it makes our minds and bodies weak. We become deprived of emotions, and it starts to become numb. And when it is something serious, that means if not taken care of, we may even lose our life.
It is termed as a serious illness as when we love others, we do give a part of our life to them. And when love fails, we lose ourselves in that process. The pain that gives us is like an illness that eats up a person. If we try to forget it, the pain doubles. Each day becomes like a penalty which we need to sum up.
Therefore, love is a disease from which we cannot recover fully.
Continue reading some more Charles Bukowski Quotes...
Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.
Loneliness is when you feel sadness as you have no one to talk to. It causes people to feel empty, alone, and unwanted. Lonely people do crave human contact, but their frame of mind makes it more difficult for them to connect with people.
Charles says that loneliness is not always felt when you are alone. But at times, even when you are in a crowded room, you still feel alone. It is mainly because even in that crowd, there is not a single soul you can connect to.
Sometimes being surrounded by a room full of people with whom you cannot connect makes you feel even lonelier. The feeling of being alone even when there are people around can be termed as a common symptom of depression. And this is what is called real loneliness.
Therefore, even in a room full of people, find that one soul you can relate to.
You have to die a few times before you can really live.
This quote is from the collection of poetry The People Look Like Flowers at Last. It is an inspiring quote that helps us to get back on track when things go wrong.
This quote is what the reality of our life is. When our life starts to fall apart, which means losing something precious to us. It can be any possession, person, or even we. There are situations in our life which tears you down apart. You feel like everything is going down the hill.
But these circumstances are proof that we can move on in our life. It is what gives us unexpected strength, which makes us a stronger person than we are. There have been a lot of situations in your life, and there will be many more, but the courage to move forward is what keeps us alive.
So, to grow as a person, you have to die quite a few times to start living again.
Few more Charles Bukowski Quotes....
Regret is mostly caused by not having done anything.
To regret something is the feeling of disappointment that you feel as you have failed to do the way you wanted. It is also a feeling which causes sadness at times which is difficult to overcome.
Charles says that we always regret when we do not try something. Even when we have many options to choose from, we pick the one we want to. Regret mainly happens when there are a lot of confusions while you make a decision.
When there is chaos, and you have to choose something, you often choose something in a hurry. No matter whatever you select, you end up feeling remorse over the things you could have done.
Therefore, no matter what you choose you may end up feeling guilty for the choices you could have made. So, live your life the way you desire to.
Find what you love and let it kill you.
This quote is from his collection of poems. In this quote, he explains the things you love and what does it do to you.
Charles says that everyone needs to find something in their life which they love. It can be a person, a thing, or even your passion. But make sure you have that one thing with you. You need it to live your life more passionately.
The next part of the quote is what is amazing. It says that when you find something you care for, let it shatter you. This quote is in terms of when you love someone. You should let it drain all of your energy. Let it cling on the back of you and kill you slowly. It is much better to be killed in this way.
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
To be crazy means to be insane or not mentally sound. Crazy is an idea that makes no sense at all. They are people who may seem sane but are not.
This quote says that it is good to be crazy at times. To be crazy means to have that exceptional enthusiasm and speed. It means to live your life without any restraint on yourself. It is to express your thoughts the way you want.
It says that you should go crazy as it is what makes a person alive. If you live your life in a sane way, then you will lead an awful life. So, try to be crazy as possible as that is the only way to breathe.
I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.
Injustice is a quality relating to unfairness or undeserved outcomes. It is to not behave in a way that is morally right and fair.
Charles says that people do not think about the injustice that happens in society. They do understand that it is unfair but keep their voices shut as it has nothing to do with them. They do not even take a second to think about it. Instead, they ignore it as it keeps on happening.
This cycle stops when suddenly something unfair happens to you. At that exact moment, everything starts coming to your mind. You start thinking and try to recollect if something similar has already happened. It only starts when tragedy strikes on you.
So, I think it's time to fight for others based on humanity.
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.
There are generally two types of people in this world. One of them is intelligent, and the other class is stupid. It is like either you know everything or you know nothing.
This quote says that there is a problem with this world that should be taken into consideration. The issue is that the intelligent people in this world are full of doubts. They always have various questions to have more clarity on the topic. They have a pool of doubts which never ends.
Whereas the stupid ones consider themselves smart and have no single difficulty. This is because they do not understand a single word which makes them feel at ease. They are confident enough to tackle the topic by hook or crook.
These differences are the major issues that amuse an average person who belongs to both the category and that too at once.
Some more Charles Bukowski Quotes...
People are strange: they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.
We human beings are complicated creatures in this world. We often get triggered for things that hardly matter. Our behavior is an unpredictable thing in this universe.
Charles says that we people are strange characters. We often get proved by the small things, which are quite silly. We get angry and start to behave crazily over negligible matter.
By behaving over silly things, we often ignore things that hold importance. And the best example is our own life. We people often forget the way we live our life. We fail to recall the aims and goals in our life and therefore the major matter like wasting our life gets unnoticed.
Hence, keep your priorities arranged as that is what helps you to sail smoothly in the journey called life.
Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.
Genius means to have an exceptional talent or skill which is above and beyond the norm. They are people who have this talent and ability right from the time they are born.
This quote says that people are geniuses only when they have the potential to explain intense things simply as intense things are difficult to comprehend. And people get bored when they try to understand as it often goes above their head.
The capability to say difficult things easily is what makes it amazing. This is what makes things much easier. And this ability is what makes a person genius.
Beware of those who seek constant crowds; they are nothing alone.
Humans are unpredictable living beings. They are so confused that they do not understand the way they need to live their lives.
Charles says there will always be people who always prefer being in a crowd. They love the attention they get in a room full of crowded ones. He says that we should look out for such people.
These people are in constant need of validation as they feel lonely. The feeling of loneliness makes them crave human contact. They hate being alone as it leads to a depressing situation.
Therefore, the lonely ones prefer large crowds so that there can be a minute when they can relax.
Fiction is an improvement on life.
Fiction is generally a type of literature that is in the form of prose or novels. These are imaginary events that often feels like a real one.
This quote is quite a beautiful one where it says that fiction is a development of our own life. It means that people often write novels that are unreal. But it works wonders as it makes people believe as if it were real.
The novels often leave their imprints in the reader's mind. Some characters become so interesting that they remain etched in their hearts. This creates an impact in their lives. The things written in the novel are something that we want to change. But at times, we find it impossible, which makes it easier to express it in novels.
And hence, novels are called a life improvement.
There are worse things than being alone but it often takes decades to realize this and most often when you do it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late.
Being alone is truly a challenge in our life as we have no one to share our worries with. There is not a single soul to lean our back on. We feel trapped by our thoughts.
Charles says that there are many other worse things than being alone in life. Of course, being alone is scary but more things in life are much worse than being lonely.
But we become so absorbed and depressed in being alone that we forget to live life. We become so involved in being alone that we fail to remember all other things. So, when we become too late when we realize the importance of life. And to tell the truth, nothing is worse than being late as we regret the changes we could make.
Therefore, realize things that you are missing out on until it's too late.
Remember that when there is a beginning, there will be an end too. Endings are not bad as they are the beginning of something new. Also, sunset is living proof that endings too can be beautiful. So keep calm and enjoy your weekend.
