Charles Bukowski Quotes

There is a blue bird in my heart that wants to get out.

~ Charles Bukowski

I didn't know if I was unhappy. I felt too miserable to be unhappy.

~ Charles Bukowski

(by the way . . . I realize I switch from present to past tense, and if you don't like it . . . ram a nipple up your scrotum. -printer: leave this in.)

~ Charles Bukowski

love needs too much help, he said.hate takes care of itself.

~ Charles Bukowski

hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.

~ Charles Bukowski

as the shadows assumeshapesI fight the slowretreatnowmy once-promisedwindlingdwindlingnowlighting new cigarettespouring moredrinksit has been a beautifulfightstillis.

~ Charles Bukowski

the lies of centuries, the lies of love,the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christwill be your bedmates and tombstonesin a death that will never end.

~ Charles Bukowski

I went to the kitchen and felt-up the turkey.

~ Charles Bukowski

my 6 foot goddessmakes me laughthe laughter of the mutilatedwho still needlove...she has saved mefrom everything that isnot here

~ Charles Bukowski

I know a womanwho keeps buying puzzleschinesepuzzlesblockswirespieces that finally fitinto some order.she works it outmathmaticallyshe solves all herpuzzleslives down by the seaputs sugar out for the antsand believesultimatelyin a better world.her hair is whiteshe seldom combs ither teeth are snaggledand she wears loose shapelesscoveralls over a body mostwomen would wish they had.for many years she irritated mewith what I considered hereccentricities-like soaking eggshells in water(to feed the plants so thatthey'd get calcium).but finally when I think of herlifeand compare it to other livesmore dazzling, originaland beautifulI realize that she has hurt fewerpeople than anybody I know(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).she has had some terrible times,times when maybe I should havehelped her morefor she is the mother of my onlychildand we were once great lovers,but she has come throughlike I saidshe has hurt fewer people thananybody I know,and if you look at it like that,well,she has created a better world.she has won.Frances, this poem is foryou.

~ 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

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

~ 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

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

~ Charles Bukowski

the impossibility of being humanall too humanthis breathingin and outout and inthese punksthese cowardsthese championsthese mad dogs of glorymoving this little bit of light towardusimpossibly.

~ Charles Bukowski

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.

~ Charles Bukowski

I write poetry, worry, smile,laughsleepcontinue for a whilejust like most of usjust like all of us;sometimes I want to hug allMankind on earthand say,god damn all this that they've brought down upon us,we are brave and goodeven though we are selfishand kill each other andkill ourselves,we are the peopleborn to kill and die and weep in dark roomsand love in dark rooms,and wait, andwait and wait and wait.we are the people.we are nothingmore.

~ Charles Bukowski

I write poetry, worry, smile,laughsleepcontinue for a whilejust like most of usjust like all of us;sometimes I want to hug allMankind on earthand say,god damn all this that they've brought down on us,we are brave and goodeven though we are selfishand kill each other andkill ourselves,we are the peopleborn to kill and die and weep in dark roomsand love in dark rooms,and wait, andwait and wait and wait.we are the people.we are nothingmore.

~ Charles Bukowski

You understand, we just don't fuck with truth.

~ Charles Bukowski

as a childi supposei was not quitenormal.my happiest times werewheni was left alone inthe house on asaturday.

~ Charles Bukowski

animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. maybe that's why we get along

~ Charles Bukowski

There is a quality about women who choosemen sparingly,it appears in their walkin their eyesin their laughter and in theirgentle hearts.

~ Charles Bukowski

to whom it may concern: please phone me for appointments when you want to see me. I will not answer unsolicited knocks upon the door. I need time to do my work. I will not allow you to murder my work. please understand that what keeps me alive will make me a better person toward and for you when we finally meet under easy and unstrained conditions.

~ 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

Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence.

~ Charles Bukowski

Existence was not only absurd, it was plain hard work. Think of how many times you put on your underwear in a lifetime. It was appalling, it was disgusting, it was stupid.

~ Charles Bukowski

I dislike interaction. The less I say the better I feel. I was naturally a loner. I didn’t want conversation, or to goanywhere. I didn’t understand other people who wanted to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I was drawn toall the wrong things: I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What Ireally wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. Relationships never worked with me. I alwayslost interest. I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings.

~ Charles Bukowski

I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn’t fit the other. I didn’t care

~ Charles Bukowski

I dislike interaction. The less I say the better I feel. I was naturally a loner. I didn’t want conversation, or to goanywhere. I didn’t understand other people who wanted to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I was drawn to all the wrong things: I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. Relationships never worked with me. I alwayslost interest. I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings.

~ Charles Bukowski

The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you’ll live ten times longer than if you have ten. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever.

~ Charles Bukowski

I was a man who thrived on solitude, without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude, but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.

~ Charles Bukowski

We’ve all heard that little woman who says, “Oh, it’s terrible what these young people do to themselves, in my lsi other drugs, is a terrible thing”.Then you look, the woman who speaks in this way: you have no eyes, no teeth, no brains, no soul, no ass, no mouth, no warmth, no spirit, nothing, just a stick… and avran made ​​you wonder how to reduce it in that state teas and pastries and the church.

~ Charles Bukowski

what you werewill not happen again.the tigers have found meand I do not care.

~ Charles Bukowski

I wasn't sleeping on the streets at night. Of course, there were a lot of good people sleeping in the streets. They weren't fools, they just didn't fit into the needed machinery of the moment. And those needs kept altering.

~ Charles Bukowski

I´ve given you my time. Its all I´ve got to give - its all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.

~ Charles Bukowski

since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light

~ Charles Bukowski

In the old days, before I was married, or knew a lot of women, I would just pull down all the shades and go to bed for three or four days. I'd get up to shit. I'd eat a can of beans, go back to bed, just stay there for three or four days. Then I'd put on my clothes and I'd walk outside, and the sunlight was brilliant, and the sounds were great. I felt powerful, like a recharged battery. But you know the first bring-down? The first human face I saw on the sidewalk, I lost half my charge right there.

~ Charles Bukowski

I decided to stay in bed until noon. Maybe by then half the world would be dead and it would only be half as hard to take.

~ Charles Bukowski

I can see wherecreation oftenstops while thebody still livesand oftendoes not careto.the death of lifebefore lifedies.

~ Charles Bukowski

I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions.

~ Charles Bukowski