Charles Bukowski Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Charles Bukowski.
Famous Quotes By Charles Bukowski
It felt good not to be part of that sort of thing. I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective. — Charles Bukowski
It almost seemed like a fuck, maybe better." "It didn't mean anything, it was just dancing. — Charles Bukowski
When you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well. — Charles Bukowski
What good are you? What can you do? It has cost me a thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you!
Suppose I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?" "Catch butterflies — Charles Bukowski
Once she had been a little girl, someday she would be dead, but now she was showing me her upper legs. — Charles Bukowski
Even though I write about the human race, the further away from them, the better I feel. Two miles is great; two thousand miles is beautiful. — Charles Bukowski
I never write in the daytime. It's like running through the shopping mall with your clothes off. Everybody can see you. At night ... that's when you pull the tricks ... magic. — Charles Bukowski
I closed my eyes and listened to the waves. Thousands of fish out there, eating each other. Endless mouths and assholes swallowing and shitting. The whole earth was nothing but mouths and assholes swallowing and shitting, and fucking. — Charles Bukowski
Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, just look at the cats, you'll feel better, because they know that everything is, just as it is. — Charles Bukowski
If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many 'bads' - bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even 'bad' white males. Only, when you write about 'bad' white males, they don't complain about it. And need I say that there are 'good' blacks, 'good' homosexuals and 'good' women? — Charles Bukowski
Everything else just kept picking and picking, hacking away. And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. — Charles Bukowski
Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. — Charles Bukowski
I didn't like parties.I didn't know how to dance and people frightened me, especially people at parties. They attempted to be sexy and gay and witty and although they hoped they were good at it, they weren 't. They were bad at it. Their trying so hard only made it worse. — Charles Bukowski
in the most decent sometimes sun
there is the softsmoke feeling from urns
and the canned sound of old battleplanes
and if you go inside and run your finger
along the window ledge you'll find
dirt, maybe even earth.
and if you look out the window
there will be the day, and as you
get older you'll keep looking
keep looking
sucking your tongue in a little
ah ah no no maybe
some do it naturally
some obscenely
everywhere. — Charles Bukowski
I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being ... Art is its own excuse, and it's either Art or it's something else. It's either a poem or a piece of cheese. — Charles Bukowski
Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them. — Charles Bukowski
It's a f*** you world. Well, keep it going anyhow, what the hell. — Charles Bukowski
But you know, only boring people get bored. They have to prod themselves continually in order to feel alive. — Charles Bukowski
Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter. Most people make too much of it. On these grounds a good fuck is not to be entirely scorned. But that's the result of a chance meeting too. You're damned right. Drink up. We'll have another. — Charles Bukowski
There is nothing as boring as the truth. — Charles Bukowski
I never met another man I'd rather be. And even if that's a delusion, it's a lucky one. — Charles Bukowski
it's better to be happy...if you can..!! — Charles Bukowski
You bitch," I whispered, "I love you." Then I came. — Charles Bukowski
It is good to be sitting some place
in public at 2:30 in the afternoon
without getting the flesh ripped from
your bones. — Charles Bukowski
People diminish me;
the longer I sit and listen to them
the more empty I feel but I don't get
the idea that they feel empty, I feel
that they enjoy the sound from their
mouths. — Charles Bukowski
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. — Charles Bukowski
There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts. — Charles Bukowski
There are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails. — Charles Bukowski
Insanity is relative. Who sets the norm? — Charles Bukowski
Escape from the black widow spider is a miracle as great as art. what a web she can weave slowly drawing you to her she'll embrace you then when she's satisfied she'll kill you still in her embrace and suck the blood from you. — Charles Bukowski
I pushed up against her warm tail and was asleep in 45 seconds. — Charles Bukowski
Kissing is more intimate than fucking. — Charles Bukowski
My eyes were blue and nobody loved me but myself. — Charles Bukowski
There are still things to be handle; there will always be things to be handled. Nobody ever gets caught up and finished on what there is to do. And even if you do, for a moment, feel a central peace, there is always somebody walking behind you with a switchblade. — Charles Bukowski
Simplicity is always the secret, to a profound truth, to doing things, to writing, to painting. Life is profound in its simplicity. — Charles Bukowski
The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting. — Charles Bukowski
Learn, he says, that there will be hours, days
and months ahead of feeling absolutely terrible
and nothing can change that; neither new
girlfriends, health professionals, changes of diet, dope, humility, or
God. — Charles Bukowski
I see a bright
portion
under the overhead light
that shades into
darkness
and then into darker
darkness
and I can't see beyond that. — Charles Bukowski
Coming in from the factory or warehouse, tired enough, there seemed little use for the night except to eat, sleep and then return to the menial job. But there was the typewriter waiting for me in those many old rooms with torn shades and worn rugs, the tub and toilet down the hall, and the feeling in the air of all the losers who had proceeded me. Sometimes the typewriter was there when the job wasn't and the food wasn't and the rent wasn't. Sometimes the typer was in hock. Sometimes there was only the park bench. But at the best of times there was the small room and the machine and the bottle. The sound of the keys, on and on, and shouts: 'HEY! KNOCK THAT OFF, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! WE'RE WORKING PEOPLE HERE AND WE'VE GOT TO GET UP IN THE MORNING!' With broom sticks knocking on the floor, pounding coming from the ceiling, I would work in a last few lines ... — Charles Bukowski
If the rest of the world could see you today their laughter would bring the sun to its knees and even the flowers would leap from the ground like bulldogs and chase you away to where you belong wherever that is, and who cares where it is as long as it's somewhere away from here. — Charles Bukowski
I want to let her know though that all the nights sleeping beside her even the useless arguments were things ever splendid and the hard words I ever feared to say can now be said: I love you. — Charles Bukowski
I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more foolish. — Charles Bukowski
News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens. — Charles Bukowski
The apartment was built at the edge of a high cliff so that when you looked out the back window it seemed as if you were twelve floors up instead of four. It was very much like living on the edge of the world - a last resting place before the final big drop. — Charles Bukowski
You shoulda known the entirety of the trap, a**hole,
love means eventual pain
victory means eventual defeat
grace means eventual slovenliness,
there's no way
out ... you see, you
understand? — Charles Bukowski
2 p.m. beer
nothing matters
but flopping on a mattress
with cheap dreams and a beer
as the leaves die and the horses die
and the landladies stare in the halls;
brisk the music of pulled shades,
a last man's cave
in an eternity of swarm
and explosion;
nothing but the dripping sink,
the empty bottle,
euphoria,
youth fenced in,
stabbed and shaven,
taught words
propped up
to die. — Charles Bukowski
did you ever consider that lsd and color TV arrived for our consumption around the same time? Here comes all this explorative color pounding, and what do we do? we outlaw one and fuck up the other. — Charles Bukowski
I got his ashes, she said, and I took them out to sea and I scattered his ashes and they didn't even look like ashes and the urn was weighted with green and blue pebbles ... — Charles Bukowski
Bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well. — Charles Bukowski
The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid to get in; they had paid for drinks; they intended to get something and if you didn't give it to them they'd run you right into the ocean. — Charles Bukowski
Women: I liked the colors of their clothing; the way they walked; the cruelty in some faces; now and then the almost pure beauty in another face, totally and enchantingly female. They had it over us: they planned much better and were better organized. While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women, were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding - whether to accept us, discard us, exchange us, kill us or whether simply to leave us. In the end it hardly mattered; no matter what they did, we ended up lonely and insane. — Charles Bukowski
We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system. — Charles Bukowski
People who believe in politics are like people who believe in God: they are sucking wind through bent straws. — Charles Bukowski
Why can't you be decent to people?" she asked. "Fear," I said. — Charles Bukowski
I run with the hunted. — Charles Bukowski
We
sat there
smoking
cigarettes
at
5
in the morning. — Charles Bukowski
Your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn't help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over the river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you. — Charles Bukowski
This is very creative, said Mrs. Fretag, and she began to read my essay. The words sounded good to me. Everybody was listening. My words filled the room, from blackboard to blackboard, they hit the ceiling and bounced off, they covered Mrs. Fretag's shoes and piled up on the floor. — Charles Bukowski
Well, the rain had stopped but the pain was still there. — Charles Bukowski
What's the easiest fucking thing to take?" I asked him. "Journalism. Those journalism majors don't do anything." "O.K., I'll be a journalist. — Charles Bukowski
We waited and waited. All of us. Didn't the shrink know that waiting was one of the things that drove people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn't have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink's office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one. — Charles Bukowski
I used to lay drunk in alleys and I probably will again.Bukowski, who is he? I read about Bukowski and it doesn't seem like anything to do with me. — Charles Bukowski
That boy was ready for his life to come, he would undoubtedly be highly successful, the lying little prick. — Charles Bukowski
Jan was an excellent fuck ... she had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that was killing her. — Charles Bukowski
There is a quality about women who choose
men sparingly;
it appears in their walk
in their eyes
in their laughter and in their
gentle hearts. — Charles Bukowski
The best part was
pulling down the
shades
stuffing the doorbell
with rags
putting the phone
in the
refrigerator
and going to bed
for 3 or 4
days. and the next best
part
was
nobody ever
missed
me. — Charles Bukowski
I was an Agnostic. Agnostics didn't have much to argue about. — Charles Bukowski
A bird no one wants. he's mine. my bird of pain. he doesn't sing. that bird swaying on the bough. — Charles Bukowski
So it's always a process of letting go, one way or another — Charles Bukowski
Well,
we lost it,
and
that's all there is
to that. — Charles Bukowski
The impossibility of being human all too human this breathing in and out out and in these punks these cowards these champions these mad dogs of glory moving this little bit of light toward us impossibly. — Charles Bukowski
When you take it away do it slowly and easily make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in my life, amen. — Charles Bukowski
To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can't sit still, move, or even go decently insane. — Charles Bukowski
I was like a turd that drew flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted to live alone,I felt best being alone, cleaner,,, — Charles Bukowski
People need me. I fill them. If they can't see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But if I see them too often I get sick. It's hard to feed without getting fed. — Charles Bukowski
It's the order of things: each one gets a taste of honey then the knife. — Charles Bukowski
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'm in love,
and now you've made a fool of me ... — Charles Bukowski
There's too much coldness in the world," I told her. "If people would only talk things out together it would help. — Charles Bukowski
Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse? — Charles Bukowski
If I'm intelligent at all I'll stay out of the woman game. But it's difficult. I had four years of perfect solitude and strength and then one knocked on the door ... — Charles Bukowski
I have, he went on, betrayed myself with
belief, deluded myself with love
tricked myself with sex.
the bottle is damned faithful, he said,
the bottle will not lie — Charles Bukowski
Presumed that the reader was as fascinated by her life as she was - which was a deadly mistake. The other deadly mistakes she had made were too numerous to mention. — Charles Bukowski
I remember when each 4th lot was vacant and overgrown, and the landlord only go this rent when you had it, and each day was clear and good and each moment was full of promise. — Charles Bukowski
I gave him my code name. 'This is Mr. Slow Death. — Charles Bukowski