Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 2

and beware those whoonly takeinstructions from theirGodfor they havefailed completely to live their ownlives.
Charles Bukowski
there is enough treachery , hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day
Charles Bukowski
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence".
Charles Bukowski
yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and back down into the gut
Charles Bukowski
now look, she said, stretched out on the bed, I don’t want anything personal, let’s just do it, I don’t want to get involved, got it? she kicked off her high-heeled shoes… sure, he said, standing there, let’s just pretend that we’ve already done it, there’s nothing less involved than that, is there? what the hell do you mean? she asked. I mean, he said, I’d rather drink anyhow. and he poured himself one. it was a lousy night in Vegas and he walked to the window and looked out at the dumb lights. you a fag? she asked, you a god damned fag? no, he said. you don’t have to get shitty,...
Charles Bukowski
That's your response to everything: drink?""No, that's my response to nothing.
Charles Bukowski
I have beenhanging hereheadlessfor so longthat the body has forgottenwhyor where or when ithappenedand the toeswalk along in shoesthat do notcareand althoughthe fingersslice things andhold things andmove things andtouchthingssuch asorangesapplesonionsbooksbodiesI am no longerreasonably surewhat these thingsarethey are mostlylikelamplight andfogthen often the hands willgo to thelost headand hold the headlike the hands of achildaround a balla blockair and wood -no teethno thinking partand when a windowblows opento achurchhillwomandogor something singingthe fingers of the handare senseless to vibrationbecause they have noearssenseless to color becausethey have noeyessenseless to smellwithout a nosethey country goes by asnonsensethe continentsthe daylights and eveningsshineon my dirtyfingernailsand in some mirrormy facea block to vanishscuffed part of a child’sballwhile everywheremovesworms and aircraftfires on the landtall violets in sanctitymy hands let go let golet go
Charles Bukowski
Ithink that theworld should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, justcats andrain, rain and cats, very nice, goodnight.
Charles Bukowski
My heart is a thousand years old. I am not like other people.
Charles Bukowski
no concept of danger, reality, flow or compassion. you can feel the despair escaping from their machines, their lives as hopeless and as numbed as yours.
Charles Bukowski
my beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the world.
Charles Bukowski
Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces.
Charles Bukowski
We’ve each given the hours of our lives in dull rote jobs for other men’s profit, and have been asked to be grateful for doing that.
Charles Bukowski
You think of killing himon the spotbut discard that thought andleave,down into the urine-stinkingelevator, they have you crucified too, America at work, where they rip out your intestinesand your brain and your will and your spirit. They suck you dry, then throw you away. The capitalist system. The work ethic. The profit motive. The memory of your father’s words,“work hard and you’ll be appreciated.” of course, only if you make much more for them than they payyou.
Charles Bukowski
How are his poems?""He's not as good as he thinks he is, but then most of us feel that way.
Charles Bukowski
The Artist," an ancient sage had once said, "is always sitting on the doorsteps of the rich.
Charles Bukowski
my poems are only bits of scratchingon the floor of acage.
Charles Bukowski
nothing's news.it's the same old thing indisguise.only one thing comes without adisguise and you only see itonce, ormaybe never.like getting hit by a freighttrain.makes us realize that all ourmoaning about long lost girlsin gingham dressesis not so importantafterall.
Charles Bukowski
Most so-called brave people lack imagination. As though they can’t conceive of what would happen if something went wrong. The truly brave overcome their imagination and do what they have to do. 2
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
I can see wherecreation oftenstops while thebody still livesand oftendoes not careto.the death of lifebefore lifedies.
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
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
since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light
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
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
what you werewill not happen again.the tigers have found meand I do not care.
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
...still, I’m lucky: I feast on solitude, I will never miss the crowd. I could read the great books but the great books don’t interest me. I sit in bed and wait for the whole thing to go one way or the other. just like everybody else.
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 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
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
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
Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence.
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
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
animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. maybe that's why we get along
Charles Bukowski
as a childi supposei was not quitenormal.my happiest times werewheni was left alone inthe house on asaturday.
Charles Bukowski
You understand, we just don't fuck with truth.
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
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
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
People were usually much better in their letters than in reality. They were much like poets in this way.
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
Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governments.
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
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
my 6 foot goddessmakes me laughthe laughter of the mutilatedwho still needlove...she has saved mefrom everything that isnot here
Charles Bukowski
I went to the kitchen and felt-up the turkey.
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
as the shadows assumeshapesI fight the slowretreatnowmy once-promisedwindlingdwindlingnowlighting new cigarettespouring moredrinksit has been a beautifulfightstillis.
Charles Bukowski
There may not be a hell, but those who judge may create one. I think people are over-taught. They are over-taught everything. You have to find out by what happens to you, how you will react. I’ll have to use a strange term here… “good.” I don’t know where it comes from, but I feel that there’s an ultimate strain of goodness born in each of us. I don’t believe in God, but I believe in this “goodness” like a tube running through our bodies. It can be nurtured. It’s always magic, when on a freeway packed with traffic, a stranger makes room for you to change lanes… it gives you hope.
Charles Bukowski
hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.
Charles Bukowski
love needs too much help, he said.hate takes care of itself.
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
I didn't know if I was unhappy. I felt too miserable to be unhappy.
Charles Bukowski
There is a blue bird in my heart that wants to get out.
Charles Bukowski
wesat theresmokingcigarettesat5in the morning.
Charles Bukowski
I found the best thingI could dowas just to type awayat my own workand let the dyingdieas they always have.
Charles Bukowski
one doesn't even think ofthe liverand if the liverdoesn't think ofus, that'sfine.
Charles Bukowski