Quotes & Sayings About Love Charles Bukowski

Lack of love. Sleep, then nightmare. Paper everywhere. Trivial bits of paper. Nothing ever done. Sure, sure, sure. Today I will walk in the sun. I will simply walk in the sun. — 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

To ask them to legalize pot is something like asking them to put butter on the handcuffs before they place them on you, something else is hurting you - that's why you need pot or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can't think, or madhouses or mechanical cunts or 162 baseball games in a season. or vietnam or israel or the fear of spiders. your love washing her yellow false teeth in the sink before you screw. — Charles Bukowski

And now I wonder which animal of us will eat the other first physically and last spiritually? We consume animals and then one of us consumes the other, my love. — Charles Bukowski

Beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world — Charles Bukowski

If you have the ability to love, love yourself first. — Charles Bukowski

Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. — Charles Bukowski

Anything is a waste of time unless you are fucking well or creating well or getting well or looming toward a kind of phantom-love-happiness. — Charles Bukowski

It's colder than hell (yes) but
the blankets are thin,
and the pulled-down shades
are as full of holes as love is. — Charles Bukowski

It's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse ... no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies ... not the death of his love but the shoelace that snaps with no time left. — Charles Bukowski

Love breaks my
bones and I
laugh — Charles Bukowski

She slammed the door and
was gone.
I looked at the closed door
and at the doorknob
and strangely
I didn't feel
alone. — Charles Bukowski

I love you but
don't know what to
do. — Charles Bukowski

There is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace — Charles Bukowski

Love is a horse with a broken leg trying to stand while 45,000 people watch. — Charles Bukowski

Love is a Dog from Hell. — Charles Bukowski

Then after all this reverse the procedure. Have a good love affair. And the thing you might learn is that nobody knows anything - not the State, nor the mice the garden hose or the North Star. And if you ever catch me teaching a creative writing class and you read this back to me I'll give you a straight A right up the pickle barrel. — Charles Bukowski

She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something. — Charles Bukowski

She wasn't very
interesting
but few people
are. — Charles Bukowski

but what can I make of love when we are all born at a different time and place and only meet through a trick of centuries and a chance three steps to the left? you — Charles Bukowski

I found the best thing
I could do
was just to type away
at my own work
and let the dying
die
as they always have. — Charles Bukowski

Having nothing to struggle
against
they have nothing to struggle
for. — Charles Bukowski

Don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it. — Charles Bukowski

When I worked on a magazine, I learned that there are many, many writers writing that can't write at all; and they keep on writing all the cliches and bromides and 1890 plots, and poems about Spring and poems about Love, and poems they think are modern because they are done in slang or staccato style, or written with all the 'i's' small. — Charles Bukowski

Love is for real men. — Charles Bukowski

We were never children like your children. We do not understand love songs like your inamorata. — Charles Bukowski

In this room the hours of love still make shadows. — Charles Bukowski

Her violence frightened me. She always claimed that I was the jealous one, and I was often jealous, but when I saw things working against me I simply became disgusted and withdrew. Lydia was different. She reacted. She was the Head Cheerleader at the Game of Violence. — Charles Bukowski

This will never leave me: that I had love and love died; a photo and a piece of tape is not much, I have learned late, but give me 14 days or 14 years, I will kill any man who would touch or take whatever's left. — Charles Bukowski

It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well. — Charles Bukowski

Love means eventual pain victory means eventual defeat — Charles Bukowski

the gods seldom
give
but so quickly
take. — Charles Bukowski

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was
with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what
I said, Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us. — Charles Bukowski

Strangers when you meet, strangers when you part -a gymnasium of bodies namelessly masturbating each other. People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or to love. So they became swingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was no gamble or humor in their game -it was corpse fucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience down through the centuries. Some morals tended to keep people slaves in factories, in churches and true to the State. Other morals simply made good sense. It was like a garden filled with poisoned fruit and good fruit. You had to know which to pick and eat, which to leave alone. — Charles Bukowski

you smirk, look at her (what's this?), you're cut somewhere, love it, the dripping of red onto your dirty torn undershirt, the whiskey roaring through your invincibility: you're young, you're big, and the world stinks from centuries of Humanity while you're on course and there's something left to drink - — Charles Bukowski

Beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average — Charles Bukowski

I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love. — Charles Bukowski

She Speaks Of Love — Charles Bukowski

We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing. — Charles Bukowski

did she love you?
only as an extension of herself.
what else can love be?
the common sense to care very much for something very good. it needn't be related by bloodline. it can be a red beachball or a piece of buttered toast. — 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

The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation. — Charles Bukowski

Thank god for Vegas. Seriously.
A lobotomy wasn't as effective as a weekend three hours of Red Bull away (from LA, not Pismo) where I wore the thinnest pinned stilettos, gambled like a sweaty degenerate mobster in black loafers, drank like Amy Winehouse and Charles Bukowski's baby, and snorted throat-dripping lines of coke in a Hard Rock Hotel bathroom with four new best friends. I'd giddily rub off any one of those from the to-do list I wrote in eyeliner on my hotel bathroom mirror. — Christy Heron

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

If there are junk yards in hell, love is the dog that guards the gates. — Charles Bukowski

sometimes it's hard to know
what to
do. — Charles Bukowski

A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover. — Charles Bukowski

A yet women -good women- frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price. — Charles Bukowski

That was love, that was bravery. Shit, who could really stand me? anyone who could stand me had a lot of forgiveness of soul. — Charles Bukowski

I felt terrible. The poor had a right to fuck their way through their bad dreams. Sex and drink, and maybe love, was all they had. — Charles Bukowski

the gods play no
favorites. — Charles Bukowski

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. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers. — Charles Bukowski

I like women who haven't lived with too many men.
I don't expect virginity but I simply prefer women
who haven't been rubbed raw by experience.
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.
Women who have had too many men
seem to choose the next one
out of revenge rather than with
feeling.
When you play the field selfishly everything
works against you:
one can't insist on love or
demand affection.
You're finally left with whatever
you have been willing to give
which often is:
nothing. — Charles Bukowski

Love iz a big fat turkey and every day iz thanksgiving — Charles Bukowski

Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could never cure her eyes of that. — Charles Bukowski

There's a small balcony here, the door is open and I can see the lights of
the cars on the Harbor Freeway south, they never stop, that roll of lights, on and on.
All those people. What are they doing? What are they thinking? We're all
going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't.
— Charles Bukowski

little sun little moon little dog
and a little to eat and a little to love
and a little to live for

in a little room
filled with little
mice
who gnaw and dance and run while I sleep
waiting for a little death
in the middle of a little morning

in a little city
in a little state
my little mother dead
my little father dead
in a little cemetery somewhere.

I have only
a little time
to tell you this:

watch out for
little death when he comes running

but like all the billions of little deaths
it will finally mean nothing and everything:

all your little tears burning like the dove,
wasted. — Charles Bukowski

I will remember the hours of kisses our lips raw with love and how you offered me your cunt your soul your insides and how I answered offering you whatever was left of me, — 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

I'll use the knives for spreading jam, and the gas to warm my greying love. — Charles Bukowski

I care for you, darling, I love you,
the only reason I fucked L. is because you fucked
Z. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N.
and because you fucked N. I had to fuck
Y. But I think of you constantly, I feel you
here in my belly like a baby, love I'd call it,
no matter what happens I'd call it love, and so
you fucked C. and then before I could move
you fucked W., so I had to fuck D. But
I want you to know that I love you, I think of you
constantly, I don't think I've ever loved anybody
like I love you. — Charles Bukowski

pull a string, a puppet moves ...

each man must realize
that it can all disappear very
quickly:
the cat, the woman, the job,
the front tire,
the bed, the walls, the
room; all our necessities
including love,
rest on foundations of sand --
and any given cause,
no matter how unrelated:
the death of a boy in Hong Kong
or a blizzard in Omaha ...
can serve as your undoing.
all your chinaware crashing to the
kitchen floor, your girl will enter
and you'll be standing, drunk,
in the center of it and she'll ask:
my god, what's the matter?
and you'll answer: I don't know,
I don't know ... — Charles Bukowski

Not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect — Charles Bukowski

Love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. — Charles Bukowski

We are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecue
we are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted
we are
an unwanted
burning
as we sizzle and fry
to the bone
the coals of Dante's 'Inferno' spit and sputter beneath
us
and
above the sky is an open hand
and
the words of wise men are useless
it's not a nice world, a nice world it's
not ... — Charles Bukowski

Your parents don't give you much love, do they?'
'I don't need that stuff,' I told her.
'Henry, everybody needs love.'
'I don't need anything.'
'You poor boy. — Charles Bukowski

Ann, I love you. I hope my car starts. I hope the sink isn't plugged up. I'm glad I didn't fuck a groupie. I'm glad I'm not very good at getting into bed with strange females. I'm glad I'm an idiot. I'm glad I don't know anything. I'm glad I haven't been murdered. When I look at my hands and they are still on my wrists, I think to myself, I am lucky. — Charles Bukowski

You don't go on "probably" when love and guns are in hand. — Charles Bukowski

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

Consummation Of Grief

I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .
it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life
what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead. — Charles Bukowski

Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality. — Charles Bukowski

as long as there are
human beings about
there is never going to be
any peace
for any individual
upon this earth (or
anywhere else
they might
escape to).

all you can do
is maybe grab
ten lucky minutes
here
or maybe an hour
there.

something
is working toward you
right now, and
I mean you
and nobody but
you. — Charles Bukowski

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant. — Charles Bukowski

I
have a face like a washrag. I sing
love songs and carry steel.
I would rather die than cry. I can't
stand hounds can't live without them.
I hang my head against the white
refrigerator and want to scream like
the last weeping of life forever but
I am bigger than the mountains. — Charles Bukowski

Sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in. — Charles Bukowski

Dear child, I only did to you
what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is
fashionable to be young; I cry when it is
fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage to love. — Charles Bukowski

One doesn't even think of
the liver
and if the liver
doesn't think of
us, that's
fine. — Charles Bukowski

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless. — Charles Bukowski

I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm bringing the dead back to life ... — Charles Bukowski

My dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it's much better to be killed by a lover.
~ Falsely yours — Charles Bukowski

And you go on toward your ocean, the cigar biting your lips the way love used to. — Charles Bukowski

Love is a form of prejudice. I have too many other prejudices. — Charles Bukowski

People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love. — Charles Bukowski

I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love,
and how you gave me everything you had
and how I offered you what was left of me. — Charles Bukowski

It does seem
the more we drink
the better the words
go. — Charles Bukowski

Love be damned now as love was damned when it first arrived. — Charles Bukowski

My love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough, as the same cat crouches. — Charles Bukowski

one more creature
dizzy with love — Charles Bukowski

Don't do it. Don't love me. — Charles Bukowski

Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love. — Charles Bukowski

there's nothing to
discuss
there's nothing to
remember
there's nothing to
forget

it's sad
and
it's not
sad

seems the
most sensible
thing
a person can
do
is
sit
with drink in
hand
as the walls
wave
their goodbye
smiles

one comes through
it
all
with a certain
amount of
efficiency and
bravery
then
leaves

some accept
the possibility of
God
to help them
get
through

others
take it
staight on

and to these

I drink
tonight. — Charles Bukowski

I feel no grief for being called something
which
I am not;
in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a good
back rub — Charles Bukowski

Those who preach god, need god
Those who preach peace do not have peace
Those who preach love do not have love — Charles Bukowski

Is this how it works? in this room the hours of love still make shadows. when you left you took almost everything. — Charles Bukowski

Some men are crazy," I said, moving toward the door.
"What do wou mean?"
"I mean, some men are in love with their wives. — Charles Bukowski

I no longer want it all, just some comfort and some sex and only a minor love. — Charles Bukowski

Something that never happens anywhere at any time. — Charles Bukowski

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. — Charles Bukowski

Love needs too much help, he said.
hate takes care of itself. — Charles Bukowski

Don't undress my love you might find a mannequin; don't undress the mannequin you might find my love. — Charles Bukowski