Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 6

What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

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.

I didn't like anything. Maybe I was afraid. That was it - I was afraid. I wanted to sit alone in a room with the shades down. I feasted upon that. I was a crank. I was a lunatic.

take a writer away from his typewriterand all you have leftisthe sicknesswhich started himtypingin thebeginning

one doesn't even think ofthe liverand if the liverdoesn't think ofus, that'sfine.

I love you butdon't know what todo.

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

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

He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.

If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.

Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.

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!

I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.

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

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

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.

hate contains truth. beauty is a facade.

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

...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.

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

I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.

Her violence frightened me. She always claimed that I was the jealous one, and I was often jealous, but when I saw things working against me I simply became disgusted and withdrew. Lydia was different. She reacted. She was the Head Cheerleader at the Game of Violence.

I had also read somewhere that if a man didn't truly believe or understand what he was espousing, somehow he could do a more convincing job

The factories, the jails, the drunken days and nights, the hospitals have weakened and shaken me like a mouse in the mouth of a hip-cat: life.- from an Aug. 1965 letter to Jim Roman "On Cats

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 ...

Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren't sure of was if we had any.

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.

I do think that poetry is important though, if you don’t strive at it, if you don’t fill it full of stars and falseness.

the tired sunsets and the tired people - it takes a lifetime to die and no time at all.

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

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.

Hell was what you made it

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

unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it

there is enough treachery , hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day

Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could never cure her eyes of that.

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

If you can hit a guy once, you can hit him twice.

I had never been a dresser. My shirts were all faded and shrunken, 5 or 6 years old, threadbare. My pants the same. I hated department stores, I hated the clerks, they acted so superior, they seemed to know the secret of life, they had a confidence I didn't possess. My shoes were always broken down and old, I disliked shoe stores too. I never purchased anything until it was completely unusable, and that included automobiles. It wasn't a matter of thrift, I just couldn't bear to be a buyer needing a seller, seller being so handsome and aloof and superior. Besides, it all took time, time when you could just be laying around and drinking.

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.

Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.

you've got to know when to let a woman go if you want to keep her,and if you don't want to keep her you let her go anyhow so it's always a process of letting go, one way or the other.

The Genius Of The Crowdthere is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the averagehuman being to supply any given army on any given dayand the best at murder are those who preach against itand the best at hate are those who preach loveand the best at war finally are those who preach peacethose who preach god, need godthose who preach peace do not have peacethose who preach peace do not have lovebeware the preachersbeware the knowersbeware those who are always reading booksbeware those who either detest povertyor are proud of itbeware those quick to praisefor they need praise in returnbeware those who are quick to censorthey are afraid of what they do not knowbeware those who seek constant crowds forthey are nothing alonebeware the average man the average womanbeware their love, their love is averageseeks averagebut there is genius in their hatredthere is enough genius in their hatred to kill youto kill anybodynot wanting solitudenot understanding solitudethey will attempt to destroy anythingthat differs from their ownnot being able to create artthey will not understand artthey will consider their failure as creatorsonly as a failure of the worldnot being able to love fullythey will believe your love incompleteand then they will hate youand their hatred will be perfectlike a shining diamondlike a knifelike a mountainlike a tigerlike hemlocktheir finest art

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

Don't you go to the movies?""Mostly just to eat popcorn in the dark.

It got so bad that Al thoughtmaybe it washimso he went to a shrinkand askedand the shrink said,"you're one of the sanest menI've ever met."poor Al.that made him feelworse than ever.

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

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.

the worst thing," he told me,"is bitterness, people end up sobitter.

Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces.

having nothing to struggleagainstthey have nothing to strugglefor.

Never bring a lot of money to where a poor man lives. He can only lose what little he has. On the other hand it is mathematically possible that he might win whatever you bring with you. What you must do, with money and the poor, is never let them get too close to one another.

How are his poems?""He's not as good as he thinks he is, but then most of us feel that way.

Jag föddes för att kränga rosor på de dödas avenyer

people who eat 3 meals a day throughout lifehave never reallytastedFood...

Love is for real men.

darkness falls upon Humanityand faces become terriblethingsthat wanted more than therewas.all our days are marked withunexpectedaffronts - somedisastrous, othersless sobut the process iswearing andcontinuous.attrition rules.most givewayleavingempty spaceswhere people shouldbe.and nowas we ready to self-destructthere is very little left tokillwhich makes the tragedyless and moremuch muchmore.

Yes Yeswhen God created love he didn't help most when God created dogs He didn't help dogs when God created plants that was average when God created hate we had a standard utility when God created me He created me when God created the monkey He was asleep when He created the giraffe He was drunk when He created narcotics He was high and when He created suicide He was low when He created you lying in bed He knew what He was doing He was drunk and He was high and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time He made some mistakes but when He created you lying in bed He came all over His Blessed Universe.

I felt like a still live fish on ice in a butcher’s counter on Friday morning.- On Cats

The time came to put Iris Duarte back on the plane.It was a morning flight which made it difficult. I wasused to rising at noon; it was a fine cure for hangoversand would add 5 years to my life. I felt no sadnesswhile driving her to L.A. International. The sex hadbeen fine; there had been laughter. I could hardlyremember a more civilized time, neither of us makingany demands, yet there had been warmth, it had notbeen without feeling, dead meat coupled with deadmeat. I detested that type of swinging, the LosAngeles, Hollywood, Bel Air, Malibu, Laguna Beachkind of sex. Strangers when you meet, strangers whenyou part—a gymnasium of bodies namelesslymasturbating each other. People with no morals oftenconsidered themselves more free, but mostly theylacked the ability to feel or to love. So they becameswingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was nogamble or humor in their game—it was corpsefucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they weregrounded on human experience down through thecenturies. Some morals tended to keep peopleslaves in factories, in churches and true to the State.Other morals simply made good sense. It was like agarden filled with poisoned fruit and good fruit. Youhad to know which to pick and eat, which to leavealone.