Charles Bukowski Quotes

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

It's all overrated, man. Sex is only a great thing if you're not getting any.

~ Charles Bukowski

fuckshe pulled her dress offover her headand I saw the pantiesindented somewhat into thecrotch.it's only human.now we've got to do it.I've got to do itafter all that bluff.it's like a party--two trappedidiots.under the sheetsafter I have snappedoff the lighther panties are stillon. she expects anopening performance.I can't blame her. butwonder why she's here withme? where are the otherguys? how can you belucky? having someone theothers have abandoned?we didn't have to do ityet we had to do it.it was something likeestablishing new credibilitywith the income taxman. I get the pantiesoff. I decide not to tongue her. even thenI'm thinking aboutafter it's over.we'll sleep togethertonighttrying to fit ourselvesinside the wallpaper.I try, fail,notice the hair on herheadmostly notice the hairon herheadand a glimpse ofnostrilspiglikeI try it again.

~ Charles Bukowski

for a man of 55 who didn't get laid until he was 23 and not very often until he was 50 I think that I should stay listed via Pacific Telephone until I get as much as the average man has had

~ Charles Bukowski

The ass is the face of the soul of sex.

~ Charles Bukowski

Walking out with the people, I didn't know which was more exciting, the air race, the parachute jump that failed, or the cunt.

~ Charles Bukowski

I have, he went on, betrayed myself withbelief, deluded myself with lovetricked myself with sex.the bottle is damned faithful, he said,the bottle will not lie

~ 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

To think, somebody had suicided for that.

~ Charles Bukowski

I liked to fuck too, but it wasn't my religion. There were too many ridiculous and tragic things about it. People didn't seem to know how to handle it. So they made a toy out of it. A toy that destroyed people.

~ Charles Bukowski

She would have been a better fuck in Greece, maybe. America was a shitty place to fuck.

~ Charles Bukowski

I write fictionWhat’s fiction?Fiction is an improvement on life.

~ Charles Bukowski

I guess I´m too used to sitting in a small room and making words do a few things. I see enough of humanity at the racetracks, the supermarkets, gas stations, freeways, cafes, etc. This can´t be helped. But I feel like kicking myself in the ass when I go to gatherings, even if the drinks are free. It never works for me. I´ve got enough clay to play with. People empty me. I have to get away to refill. I´m what´s best for me, sitting here slouched, smoking a beedie and watching this creen flash the words. Seldom do you meet a rare or interesting person. It´s more than galling, it´s a fucking constant shock. It´s making a god-damned grouch out of me. Anybody can be a god-damned grouch and most are. Help!

~ Charles Bukowski

it does seemthe more we drinkthe better the wordsgo.

~ Charles Bukowski

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

~ Charles Bukowski

it is so dark now with the sadness ofpeoplethey were tricked, they were taught to expect theultimate when nothing ispromisednow young girls weep alone in small roomsold men angrily swing their canes atvisions asladies comb their hair asants search for survivalhistory surrounds usand our livesslink awayinshame.

~ Charles Bukowski

we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecuewe are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we arean unwantedburningas we sizzle and fryto the bonethe coals of Dante's 'Inferno' spit and sputter beneathus andabove the sky is an open hand andthe words of wise men are uselessit's not a nice world, a nice world it's not ...

~ Charles Bukowski

she wasn't veryinterestingbut few peopleare.

~ Charles Bukowski

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

~ Charles Bukowski

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

~ Charles Bukowski

Whether I was a genius or not did not so much concern me as the fact that I simply did not want a part of anything. The animal-drive and energy of my fellow man amazed me: that a man could change tires all day long or drive an ice cream truck or run for Congress or cut into a man's guts in surgery or murder, this was all beyond me. I did not want to begin. I still don't. Any day I that I could cheat away from this system of living seemed a good victory for me.

~ Charles Bukowski

there are so many dayswhen living stops and pulls up and sitsand waits like a train on the rails.

~ Charles Bukowski

Life wore a man out, wore a man thin.Tomorrow would be a better day.

~ 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

Well it’s good to have a car like that, once in a while somebody’ll say, ‘why don’t you come over for dinner?’ and I can just say, ‘Car won’t make it.’ I don’t have to tell them that time is scarcer than young pussy around here, and I don’t mean time to write POETRY. I mean time to lay in bed, alone, and stare up at the ceiling and not think at all, not at all, not at all…

~ Charles Bukowski

So be careful when you bend over.

~ Charles Bukowski

Hell was what you made it

~ Charles Bukowski

Existence was not only absurd, it was plain hard work

~ Charles Bukowski

I'm not dead yet, just in a state of rapid decay, who isn't?

~ Charles Bukowski

There's a light somewhere.It may not be much light butit beats the darkness.

~ Charles Bukowski

I know that some nightin some bedroomsoonmy fingers willriftthroughsoft cleanhairsongs such as no radioplaysall sadness, grinninginto flow.

~ Charles Bukowski

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.

~ Charles Bukowski

Now something so sad has hold of us that the breath leaves and we can't even cry.

~ Charles Bukowski

there’s nothing todiscussthere’s nothing torememberthere’s nothing toforgetit’s sadand it’s notsadseems themost sensiblethinga person can doissitwith drink inhandas the wallswavetheir goodbyesmilesone comes throughit allwith a certain amount ofefficiency andbraverythenleavessome acceptthe possibility ofGodto help themgetthroughotherstake itstaight onand to theseI drink tonight.

~ Charles Bukowski

now it’s computers and more computersand soon everybody will have one,3-year-olds will have computersand everybody will know everythingabout everybody elselong before they meet them.nobody will want to meet anybodyelse ever againand everybody will bea recluselike I am now.

~ Charles Bukowski

Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it.

~ Charles Bukowski

Love is for real men.

~ Charles Bukowski

I could never acceptlife as it was,I could never gobbledown all itspoisonsbu there were parts,tenuous magic partsopen for theasking.

~ 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

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

~ Charles Bukowski