Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 4

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
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
she wasn't veryinterestingbut few peopleare.
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
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
The old gal was only another lonely creature in a world that didn’t care
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
I write fiction""What’s fiction?""Fiction is an improvement on life.
Charles Bukowski
You bitch," I whispered, "I love you." Then I came.
Charles Bukowski
She would have been a better fuck in Greece, maybe. America was a shitty place to fuck.
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
To think, somebody had suicided for that.
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
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
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
The ass is the face of the soul of sex.
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
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
It's all overrated, man. Sex is only a great thing if you're not getting any.
Charles Bukowski
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
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
Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.
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
...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
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
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
the courage it took to get out of bed eachmorningto face the same thingsover and overwasenormous.
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
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
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
The good times were over. Nobody gave a shit and nobody had any money and if they had any, they kept it.
Charles Bukowski
I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.
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
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
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
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
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
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
the first place smelled like work, so I took the second
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
The total ugliness and indifference of the worst features of the human race come out in their driving habits.
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
When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.
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
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
the way to create art is to burn and destroyordinary concepts and to substitute themwith new truths that run down from the top of the headand out of the heart
Charles Bukowski
that's what kills a man: lack of change.
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
Education was the new god, and educated men the new plantation masters.
Charles Bukowski
good weatheris likegood women—it doesn’t always happenand when it doesit doesn’talways last.
Charles Bukowski
You women have more holes than swiss cheese.
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
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
When women agree with me I always do the other thing
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