Bukowski Quotes

We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.

You women have more holes than swiss cheese.

The ass is the face of the soul of sex.

My heart is a thousand years old. I am not like other people.

If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.

when Whitman wrote, “I sing the body electric”I know what hemeantI know what hewanted:to be complete...

Yes Yeswhen God created love he didn't help most when God created dogs He didn't help dogs when God ...

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

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

where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die,

Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, f...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know that some nightin some bedroomsoonmy fingers willriftthroughsoft cleanhairsongs such as no ra...

people need me. I fillthem. if they can't see mefor awhile the get desperate, they getsick.but if I ...

Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing i...

Whether I was a genius or not did not so much concern me as the fact that I simply did not want a pa...

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

crawled like a blind slug into the web

Like anybody can tell you, I am not a very nice man. I don't know the word. I have always admired th...

We’ve all heard that little woman who says, “Oh, it’s terrible what these young people do to themsel...

to ask them to legalize pot is something like asking them to put butter on the handcuffs before they...

that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers - they don't feel a hell of a lot excep...

La mayoría de la muerte de la gente es una farsa, no queda en ellos nada que pueda morir

Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governm...

and love is a word usedtoo much andmuchtoo soon.

The centuries are sprinkled with rare magicwith divine creatureswho help us get past the common and ...

The dead do not needaspirin orsorrow,I suppose.but they might needrain.not shoesbut a place towalk.n...

some moments are nice, some arenicer, some are even worthwritingabout.

I don't know. It's been terribly hard for me. How do I know you won't do it again?''Nobody is ever q...

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

You're the most unknown famous man I ever met

Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. No...

I didn't know who tobelievebutone thing I doknow: when a man islivingmany claim relationshipsthat ar...

the world is better withoutthem.only the plants and the animals aretrue comrades.I drink to them and...

as the shadows assumeshapesI fight the slowretreatnowmy once-promisedwindlingdwindlingnowlighting ne...

I see a brightportionunder the overhead lightthat shades intodarknessand then into darkerdarknessand...

when I drive the freeways I see the soul of humanity ofmy city and it's ugly, ugly, ugly: the living...

the price of creationis nevertoo high.the price of livingwith other peoplealwaysis.

the gods seldomgivebut so quicklytake.

there's no clarity.there was never meant to be clarity.

darkness falls upon Humanityand faces become terriblethingsthat wanted more than therewas.all our da...

the worst thing," he told me,"is bitterness, people end up sobitter.

we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecuewe are unwanted and burni...

it is so dark now with the sadness ofpeoplethey were tricked, they were taught to expect theultimate...

I feel no grief for being called somethingwhichI am not;in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a g...

it does seemthe more we drinkthe better the wordsgo.

Beasts bounding through time. Van Gogh writing his brother for paintsHemingway testing his shotgunCe...

sometimes all we need to be able to continue aloneare the deadrattling the wallsthat close us in.

she wasn't veryinterestingbut few peopleare.

one doesn't even think ofthe liverand if the liverdoesn't think ofus, that'sfine.

the gods play nofavorites.

regret is mostly caused by not havingdone anything.

she slammed the door andwas gone.I looked at the closed doorand at the doorknoband strangelyI didn't...

I believe that to be the world's greatest livingwriterthere must be somethingterribly wrong with you...

sometimes when everything seems atits worstwhen all conspiresand gnawsand the hours, days, weeksyear...

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

there’s nothing todiscussthere’s nothing torememberthere’s nothing toforgetit’s sadand it’s notsadse...

sometimes it's hard to knowwhat todo.

the best part waspulling down theshadesstuffing the doorbellwith ragsputting the phonein therefriger...

It got so bad that Al thoughtmaybe it washimso he went to a shrinkand askedand the shrink said,"you'...

I paid, got up, walkedto the door, openedit.I heard the mansay, "that guy'snuts."out on the street I...

as long as there arehuman beings aboutthere is never going to beany peacefor any individualupon this...

I found the best thingI could dowas just to type awayat my own workand let the dyingdieas they alway...

having nothing to struggleagainstthey have nothing to strugglefor.