Quotes & Sayings About Writing Bukowski

What will you do?"
"Oh, hell, I'll write a novel about writing the screenplay and making the movie."
"What are you going to call it?"
"Hollywood."
"Hollywood?"
"Yes ... — Charles Bukowski

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard. — Charles Bukowski

When I say that basically writing is a hard hustle, I don't mean that it is a bad life, if one can get away with it. It's the miracle of miracles to make a living by the typer. — Charles Bukowski

The morning interviews were always the hardest, hung-over, trying to get the beer down. No, I have no idea why I am a writer. No, my writing has no particular meaning that I know of. Celine? Oh sure. Why not? Do I like women? Well, I'd rather fuck most of them than live with them. What do I think is important? Good wine, good plumbing and to be able to sleep late in the mornings. Are you really disturbing me? Of course you are. Do you expect me to start lying at the age of 58? Buy me a drink. — Charles Bukowski

To die with your boots on while writing poetry is not as glorious as riding a horse down Broadway with a stick of dynamite in your teeth, — Charles Bukowski

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page. — Charles Bukowski

There was something to be learned about writing from watching boxing matches or going to the racetrack. The message wasn't clear but it helped me. That was the important part: the message wasn't clear. It was wordless, like a house burning, or an earthquake or a flood, or a woman getting out of a car, showing her legs. I didn't know what other writers needed; I didn't care, I couldn't read them anyway. I was locked into my own habits, — Charles Bukowski

Take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning — Charles Bukowski

There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets ... when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through. — Charles Bukowski

The idea, of course, might be to let them know that writing needn't be hard work; the hard work is getting out of bed in the morning or at noon; the hard work is looking at people's faces in long supermarket lines; the hard work is working for somebody else who is making money using your life's hours and years. — Charles Bukowski

When everything works best, it's not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It's when you're mad with it, it's when it's stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It's when there's no hope but that. — Charles Bukowski

There's nothing to stop a man from writing unless that man
stops himself. If a man truly desires to write, then he will.
Rejection and ridicule will only strengthen him. And the longer
he is held back the stronger he will become, like a mass of rising
water against a dam. There is no losing in writing, it will make your toes laugh
as you sleep, it will make you stride like a tiger, it will fire
the eye and put you face to face with death. You will die a fighter,
you will be honored in hell. The luck of the word. Go with it, send it. — Charles Bukowski

It's hot tonight and half the neighborhood is drunk. the other half is dead. if I have any advice about writing poetry it's - don't. I'm going to send out for some fried chicken. — Charles Bukowski

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

Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human — Charles Bukowski

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life. — Charles Bukowski

The truth, however, was that there was very little greatness. It was almost nonexistent, invisible. But you could be sure that the worst writers had the most confidence, the least self-doubt. Anyway, writers were to be avoided, and I tried to avoid them, but it was almost impossible. They hoped for some sort of brotherhood, some kind of togetherness. None of it had anything to do with writing, none of it helped at the typewriter. — Charles Bukowski

To me Art (poetry) is a continuous and continuing process and that when a man fails to write good poetry he fails to live fully or well. — Charles Bukowski

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don't want it smoothed out. — 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

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

Unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it — Charles Bukowski

There's no point in writing my kind of stuff, when they're printing that kind of stuff. So I gave up and started drinking. — Charles Bukowski

Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness ... — Charles Bukowski

Writing is its own intoxication. — Charles Bukowski

Don't ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out — Charles Bukowski

Bad poetry is caused by people who sit down and think, Now I am going to write a Poem. — Charles Bukowski

I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax. — Charles Bukowski

Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust. — Charles Bukowski

Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious. — Charles Bukowski

I do think that poetry is important though, if you don't strive at it, if you don't fill it full of stars and falseness. — Charles Bukowski

Writing is also my cat. Writing lets me face it. — Charles Bukowski

The writing of some
men
is like a vast bridge
that carries you
over
the many things
that claw and tear.
The Wine of Forever — Charles Bukowski

People were usually much better in their letters than in reality. They were much like poets in this way. — Charles Bukowski

Sometimes you make a mistake, taking the wrong poem more often I make the mistake, writing it. — Charles Bukowski

If you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else. — Charles Bukowski

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, 'Don't try.' That fits the writing, too. I don't try; I just type. — Charles Bukowski

Nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing. — Charles Bukowski

In the old days,' he said, 'writers' lives were more interesting than their writing. Now-a-days neither their lives nor the writing is interesting. — 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 secret is writing down one simple line after another. — Charles Bukowski

Some moments are nice, some are nicer, some are even worth writing about. — Charles Bukowski

And the writers keep writing and the artists keep painting but it doesn't mean too much. — Charles Bukowski

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

When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble. — Charles Bukowski

They thought that writing had
something to do with
the politics of the
thing.
they were simply not
crazy enough
in the head
to sit down to a
typer
and let the words bang
out.
they didn't want to
write
they wanted to
succeed at
writing. — Charles Bukowski

Bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it — Charles Bukowski

He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge. — Charles Bukowski

Then sit down and write
or stand up and
write
but write
no matter what
the other people are
doing,
no matter what
they will do to
you. — Charles Bukowski

I write less about alcohol, less and less and less. You 're an addict - so of course you write about the thing you love most. I loved alcohol the most, loved it more than anybody or anything. That's what I wrote about. And it certainly accounted for some great writing. But it accounted for two or three years of good writing - it would never account for 20 years of good writing. I would have turned into Charles Bukowski. He wrote 10,000 poems and 10 of them were great. — Sherman Alexie

I never could figure out how those people like Bukowski could be both carousers and writers at the same time, because to me writing takes as much destructive energy as it takes to be a really good professional drunk. — Dan Chaon

There is something about writing poetry that brings a man close to the cliff's edge. — Charles Bukowski

have to be on the cross and bleeding in order to have soul. They want you half mad, dribbling down your shirt front. I've had enough of the cross, my tank is full of that. If I can stay off the cross, I still have plenty to run on. Too much. Let them get on the cross, I'll congratulate them. But pain doesn't create writing, a writer does. — Charles Bukowski

A good writer knew when not to write. Anybody could type. Not that I was a good typist; also I couldn't spell and I didn't know grammar. But I knew when not to write. It was like fucking. You had to rest the godhead now and then. — Charles Bukowski

There's no way I can stop writing, it's a form of insanity. — Charles Bukowski

Writing is when I fly, writing is when I start fires. Writing is when I take death out of my left pocket, throw him against the wall and catch him as he bounces back. — Charles Bukowski

If you can't write the next line, well, you're dead. The past doesn't matter. — Charles Bukowski

Yes?' he asked, looking at me over the sheet.
'I'm a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.'
'Oh, a writer, eh?'
'Yes.'
'Are you sure?'
'No, I'm not.'
'What do you write?'
'Short stories mostly. And I'm halfway through a novel.'
'A novel, eh?'
'Yes.'
'What's the name of it?'
'"The Leaky Faucet of My Doom."'
'Oh, I like that. What's it about?'
'Everything.'
'Everything? You mean, for instance, it's about cancer?'
'Yes.'
'How about my wife?'
'She's in there too. — Charles Bukowski

Great writers are indecent people they live unfairly saving the best part for paper. good human beings save the world so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal. if you read this after I am dead it means I made it. — Charles Bukowski

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don't even know I'm working on. It's a free lunch. A free dinner. I don't know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing. — Charles Bukowski

I wish I were driving a blue 1952 Buick
or a dark blue 1942 Buick
or a blue 1932 Buick
over a cliff of hell and into the
sea. — Charles Bukowski

I believe that to be the world's greatest living
writer
there must be something
terribly wrong with you.
I don't even want to be the world's greatest
dead writer.
just being dead would be fair
enough. — Charles Bukowski

Sometimes I've called writing a disease. If so, I'm glad that it caught me. — Charles Bukowski

Isolation is a gift. Everything else is just a test of your endurance. You will be alone with the Gods. Your nights will flame with fire. — Charles Bukowski

A dry period for me means perhaps going two or three nights without writing. I probably have dry periods but I'm not aware of them and I go on writing, only the writing probably isn't much good. — Charles Bukowski

I beg to differ on Charles Bukowski, who says nothing can save you, except writing. Sometimes, absolutely nothing will save you, not the nights you end up wasting waiting for something grand to happen, not the mornings where coffee has no taste and you wake up knowing the day will not be a blast, not the plans and schemes you write down on your imaginary flipchart to make the world go round. You end up stuck, alone and in the disparate points of chaos that drag you down, you have to come up with something to save yourself. Then you make six impossible wishes before breakfast, start walking and working and learn to seize what you call paranormal activity when it comes true. — Ioana-Cristina Casapu

A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living your life without a man like him around. — Charles Bukowski

If I stop writing I am dead. And that's the only way I'll stop: dead. — Charles Bukowski

The public takes from a writer, or a writing, what it needs and lets the remainder go. but what they take is usually what they need least and what they let go is what they need most. — Charles Bukowski

Writing is like going to bed with a beautiful woman and afterwards she gets up, goes to her purse and gives me a handful of money. — Charles Bukowski

Some people have written that my writing has helped them go on.
It has helped me too. The writing, the roses, the 9 cats. — Charles Bukowski

Some of my poems indicate that I am writing while living alone after a split with a woman, and I've had many splits with women. I need solitude more often when I'm not writing than when I am. — Charles Bukowski

Not writing is not good but trying to write when you can't is worse. — Charles Bukowski

Writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all — Charles Bukowski

Only assholes talk about writing — Charles Bukowski

The centuries are sprinkled with rare magic
with divine creatures
who help us get past the common and extraordinary ills that beset us — Charles Bukowski

The writing's easy, it's the living that is sometimes difficult. — Charles Bukowski

I have seen too many men wilt and go silly under a little light, and then they continue to write and get published, turning out pure crap under a name that has become a bad habit. The next poem is all that counts. You can't stand on past poems. — Charles Bukowski

If you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready. — Charles Bukowski

I'm very clever
at
hiding poems
perhaps more
clever than I
am
at
writing
them. — Charles Bukowski

I thought about breakups, how difficult they were, but then usually it was only after you broke up with one woman that you met another. I had to taste women in order to really know them, to get inside of them. I could invent men in my mind because I was one, but women, for me, were almost impossible to fictionalize without first knowing them. So I explored them as best I could and I found human beings inside. The writing was only a residue. A man didn't have to have a woman in order to feel as real as he could feel, but it was good if he knew a few. Then when the affair went wrong he'd feel what it was like to be truly lonely and crazed, and thus know what he must face, finally, when his own end came. — Charles Bukowski

I write right off the typer. I call it my "machinegun." I hit it hard, usually late at night while drinking wine and listening to classical music on the radio and smoking mangalore ganesh beedies. — Charles Bukowski

If you're going to be a writer you should sit down and write in the morning, and keep it up all day, every day. Charles Bukowski, no matter how drunk he got the night before or no matter how hungover he was, the next morning he was at his typewriter. Every morning. Holidays, too. He'd have a bottle of whiskey with him to wake up with, and that's what he believed. That's the way you became a writer: by writing. When you weren't writing, you weren't a writer. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity. — Charles Bukowski

People just don't know how to write down a simple easy line. It's difficult for them; it's like trying to keep a hard-on while drowning - not many can do it. — Charles Bukowski