Charles Bukowski Quotes

You're the most unknown famous man I ever met

~ Charles Bukowski

Where did all the women come from? The supply was endless. Each one of them was individual, different. Their pussies were different, their kisses were different, their breasts were different, but no man could drink them all, there were too many of them, crossing their legs, driving men mad. What a feast!

~ Charles Bukowski

There were no judgments to be made, yet out of necessity one had to select. Beyond good and evil was all right in theory, but to go on living one had to select: some were kinder than others, some were simply more interested in you, and sometimes the outwardly beautiful and inwardly cold were necessary. The kinder ones fucked better, really, and after you were around them a while they seemed beautiful because they were.

~ Charles Bukowski

Generally, I decided, it was better to wait, if you had any feeling for the individual. If you hated her right off, it was better to fuck her right off; if you didn't, it was better to wait, then fuck her and hate her later on.

~ Charles Bukowski

women were beyond me.they saw somethingdepraved.there was one waitressa little older thanI, she rather smiled,lingered when shebrought mycoffee.that was plenty for me, that wasenough.- Young in New Orleans

~ Charles Bukowski

I don't know. It's been terribly hard for me. How do I know you won't do it again?''Nobody is ever quite sure of what they will do. You aren't sure what you might do.

~ Charles Bukowski

When women agree with me I always do the other thing

~ Charles Bukowski

I guess lesbianism wasn't so rampant in those days, they would've gotten a bunk with each other and just left me alone, you know. Which would have been just as well, you know..

~ Charles Bukowski

Nothing like beautiful legs. 'Cause with beautiful legs, even if you've been there only once or twice, there might be something up there besides the cunt, there might be something really marvellous this time - it could be a cunt, but it could be - it's just something about looking at the legs just makes you - I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the cunt, I'm just saying, you always imagine - some extra magic when you're looking at the outside portion of the female.

~ Charles Bukowski

I'm not a guru. I wish you wouldn't pose these things at me, man. Ask me about women or something.

~ Charles Bukowski

You women have more holes than swiss cheese.

~ Charles Bukowski

good weatheris likegood women—it doesn’t always happenand when it doesit doesn’talways last.

~ Charles Bukowski

All we do is sleep, and eat and lay around and make love. We're like slugs. Slug-love, I call it.

~ Charles Bukowski

that's what kills a man: lack of change.

~ Charles Bukowski

if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,then wait patiently.if it never does roar out of you,do something else.

~ Charles Bukowski

unless it comes out ofyour soul like a rocket,unless being still woulddrive you to madness orsuicide or murder,don’t do it.unless the sun inside you isburning your gut,don’t do it.when it is truly time,and if you have been chosen,it will do it byitself and it will keep on doing ituntil you die or it dies in you.there is no other way.and there never was.

~ Charles Bukowski

It was a joy! Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.

~ Charles Bukowski

I sat back down and poured a glass of wine. I left my door open. The moonlight came in with the sounds of the city: juke boxes, automobiles, curses, dogs barking, radios . . . We were all in it together. We were all in one big shit pot together. There was no escape. We were all going to be flushed away.

~ Charles Bukowski

The total ugliness and indifference of the worst features of the human race come out in their driving habits.

~ Charles Bukowski

That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.

~ Charles Bukowski

Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job, it takes a wise man to make it without working.

~ Charles Bukowski

the first place smelled like work, so I took the second

~ 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

you shoulda known the entirety of the trap, a**hole,love means eventual painvictory means eventual defeatgrace means eventual slovenliness,there's no wayout...you see, youunderstand?

~ Charles Bukowski

my gardenin the sun and in the rainand in the day and in the nightpain is a flowerpain is flowersblooming all the time.

~ Charles Bukowski

that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers - they don't feel a hell of a lot except their own comfort or their own pain. which is normal but shitty.

~ Charles Bukowski

Ya got cigarettes?” she asks. “Yes,” I say,“I got cigarettes.” “Matches?” she asks.“Enough to burn Rome.” “Whiskey?”“Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River of pain.” “You drunk?” “Not yet.

~ Charles Bukowski

Music is much like fucking, but some composers can't climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent.

~ Charles Bukowski

I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.

~ Charles Bukowski

The good times were over. Nobody gave a shit and nobody had any money and if they had any, they kept it.

~ Charles Bukowski

unaccountably we are aloneforever aloneand it was meant to bethat way,it was never meantto be any other way–and when the death strugglebeginsthe last thing I wish to seeisa ring of human faceshovering over me–better just my old friends,the walls of my self,let only them be there.I have been alone but seldomlonely.I have satisfied my thirstat the wellof my selfand that wine was good,the best I ever had,and tonightsittingstaring into the darkI now finally understandthe dark and thelight and everythingin between.peace of mind and heartarriveswhen we accept whatis:having beenborn into thisstrange lifewe must acceptthe wasted gamble of ourdaysand take some satisfaction inthe pleasure ofleaving it allbehind.cry not for me.grieve not for me.readwhat I’ve writtenthenforget itall.drink from the wellof your selfand beginagain.Mind and Heart

~ Charles Bukowski

all theorieslike clichesshot to hell,all these small faceslooking upbeautiful and believing;I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believe but believe is agraveyard. we have narrowed it down tothe butcherknife and themockingbird wish usluck.

~ Charles Bukowski

all people start tocome apart finallyand there it is:just empty ashtrays in a roomor wisps of hair on a combin the dissolving moonlight.

~ Charles Bukowski

the courage it took to get out of bed eachmorningto face the same thingsover and overwasenormous.

~ Charles Bukowski

if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don’t do it.

~ Charles Bukowski

I'd decided the campus was just a place to hide. There were some campus freaks who stayed on forever. The whole college scene was soft. They never told you what to expect out there in the real world. They just crammed you with theory and never told you how hard the pavements were. A college education could destroy an individual for life. Books could make you soft. When you put them down, and really went out there, then you needed to know what they never told you.

~ Charles Bukowski

...they would say 'he said this, he did that', but they would never say 'she said this, she did that'. So I would say, they are sick, and I am well. Pardon me.

~ Charles Bukowski

Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.

~ Charles Bukowski

Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.

~ 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