Charles Bukowski Quotes

And it seems people should not build houses anymoreit seems people should stop working and sit in sm...

There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into th...

there is always one woman to save you from another and as that woman saves you she makes ready to de...

Jag föddes för att kränga rosor på de dödas avenyer

If I never see you again I will always carry youinsideoutsideon my fingertipsand at brain edgesand i...

There was nothing glorious about the life of a drinker or the life of a writer.

Life's as kind as you let it be.

What is your advice to young writers?” “Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.

What is your advice to young writers?""Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.""What is your adv...

People just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects...

How are his poems?""He's not as good as he thinks he is, but then most of us feel that way.

If you can hit a guy once, you can hit him twice.

All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this fix. You want to test me. Sup...

You could sit in there all day drinking coffee and they never asked you to leave no matter how bad y...

What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowe...

I was like a turd that drew flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I want...

I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.

I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.

To think, somebody had suicided for that.

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed lov...

I didn't know if I was unhappy. I felt too miserable to be unhappy.

First paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L.A. Public Librar...

The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day ...

Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can ...

I had also read somewhere that if a man didn't truly believe or understand what he was espousing, so...

It was a joy! Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them ...

When I get down to my last dime I'll just walk over to skid row.""There are some real weirdos down t...

Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence.

Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep hi...

Yes?’ he asked, looking at me over the sheet.‘I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.’‘Oh,...

I´ve given you my time. Its all I´ve got to give - its all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a...

jan was an excellent fuck...she had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that was killi...

She was perfect, pure maddening sex, and she knew it, and she played on it, dripped it, and allowed ...

I kept telling myself that all the women in the world weren´t whores, just mine.

It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun

You bitch," I whispered, "I love you." Then I came.

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfrie...

That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man.

People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it need...

unaccountably we are aloneforever aloneand it was meant to bethat way,it was never meantto be any ot...

In the old days, before I was married, or knew a lot of women, I would just pull down all the shades...

I have beenhanging hereheadlessfor so longthat the body has forgottenwhyor where or when ithappeneda...

since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to ligh...

I'd decided the campus was just a place to hide. There were some campus freaks who stayed on forever...

nothing's news.it's the same old thing indisguise.only one thing comes without adisguise and you onl...

I can see wherecreation oftenstops while thebody still livesand oftendoes not careto.the death of li...

the people are the biggesthorror show on earth,have been forcenturies.

I could never acceptlife as it was,I could never gobbledown all itspoisonsbu there were parts,tenuou...

The Laughing Heartyour life is your lifedon’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.be on the watch...

sleeping in the rain helps me forget things like I am going todie and you are going to die and the c...

Don't you go to the movies?""Mostly just to eat popcorn in the dark.

Ithink that theworld should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, justcats andrain, rain and...

shot in the eyeshot in the brainshot in the assshot like a flower in the danceamazing how death wins...

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

(the whole world is at thethroat of the world,everybody feels angry,short-changed, cheated,everybody...

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

We’ve each given the hours of our lives in dull rote jobs for other men’s profit, and have been aske...

Why does a man destroy himself or what destroys him? I would have to judge that suicide is mostly th...

The total ugliness and indifference of the worst features of the human race come out in their drivin...

I always felt it wouldpass.I listened to the charges against meknowing some of them to be truebut ce...

during my worst timeson the park benchesin the jailsor living withwhoresI always had this certaincon...

Never bring a lot of money to where a poor man lives. He can only lose what little he has. On the ot...

Love is for real men.

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

Some people never go crazy. Me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch for 3 or 4 days. They'll fi...

People need me. I fill them. If they can't see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But...

I felt I had to win. It seemed very important. I didn't know why it was important and I kept thinkin...

If I bet on humanity, I'd never cash a ticket.

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

DEATH COMES SLOWLY LIKE ANTS TO A FALLEN FIG

what you werewill not happen again.the tigers have found meand I do not care.

I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing...

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh...

the tired sunsets and the tired people - it takes a lifetime to die and no time at all.

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't ...

Yawn...I believe that I love sleepmuch more than anybody I’ve evermet.I have the ability to sleep fo...

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

I write poetry, worry, smile,laughsleepcontinue for a whilejust like most of usjust like all of us;s...

I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.

I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not ...

Hey, Hank, I notice all the women around your place lately ... good looking stuff; you're doing all ...

What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.

So be careful when you bend over.

my mother, poor fish,wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times aweek, telling me to be happy: "...

the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vas...

What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lo...

I guess lesbianism wasn't so rampant in those days, they would've gotten a bunk with each other and ...

There is nothing worse than being broke and having your woman leave you. Nothing to drink, no job,ju...

Nothing like beautiful legs. 'Cause with beautiful legs, even if you've been there only once or twic...

To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully...

...still, I’m lucky: I feast on solitude, I will never miss the crowd. I could read the great books ...

be it peace or happinesslet it enfold you

Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or...

we must bringour own lightto thedarkness.

Isolation is a gift. Everything else is just a test of your endurance. You will be alone with the Go...

That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest i...

unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it

the way to create art is to burn and destroyordinary concepts and to substitute themwith new truths ...

Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I ...

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