A collection of 250 of Charles Bukowski's best quotes that perfectly capture his fiery spirit.
Henry Charles Bukowski, also known as Buk or Hank, was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. He was a central figure in the Dirty Realism movement and a chronicler of American low life.
Much of her writing is inspired by alcoholics, sex workers, losing gamblers, relationships, love, and daily routine, among others. His artistic output reflects both the autobiographical truth of him and the thought-provoking fiction of him.
However, it is clear that the "Old Dirty" was not without its flaws. Charles Bukowski was a controversial, conceited and hedonistic writer. He was a misanthropic womanizer, heavy drinker and chain smoker who facilitated the self-destruction of hearts and minds.
Despite a lack of critical acclaim, Bukowski's honest, raw, and provocative prose and poetry have found an audience both in the mainstream and underground.
If you haven't read a word of Charles Bukowski's work, you're missing out on hundreds of bizarre, outrageous, and brilliantly written pages.
His prose is sharp, raw, dark and hilarious. She would have hit it on Twitter. Your face is also funny; he looks worn down by life, but on the inside he seems to be smiling all the time.
Regardless of what you think of Buk, his mastery of the written word is undeniable, as evidenced by the best Charles Bukowski quotes I've collected for you. Leverage!
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THE BEST QUOTES OF CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Charles Bukowski quotes about love
"Look, let me put it this way: with me, you're number one and there's not even a number two."
"Find what you love and let it kill you."
"I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, just texts and keeps little pictures."
“Love is good for those who can deal with psychological overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back through a raging river full of urine."
"Love is a word
overused
it's very early."
"Eyes. Those damn eyes fucked me forever."
"Love is a fog that burns at the first light of reality."
“Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what is good for you, you love what is comfortable. How can you say you love someone when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you knew them? But you'll never know her."
"Love is like seeing a mist in the morning, when you wake up before the sun rises. It lasts a little while and then it burns... Love is a mist that burns at the first light of reality."
"You probably won't move on when love and guns are in hand."
"When love becomes order, hate can become pleasure."
"Love breaks my bones and I laugh."
"If you have the ability to love, love yourself first."
"Loving like this was a serious illness, an illness from which you never fully recover."
"And there I was, 225 pounds, constantly lost and confused, short legs, monkey torso, full chest, no neck, oversized head, blurry eyes, tousled hair, six foot nerd, waiting for her."
"...in this drunken place
you could
give your heart
And says
play this
but then
Return it."
“Love needs a lot of help.
Hate takes care of itself."
“There is a place in the heart that will never be filled; a space. And even in the best of times and the best of times, we will know."
"Love be cursed now
How cursed was love if she
came first."
"In this room
the hours of love
it still casts shadows.”
"I remember waking up one morning to find everything stained the color of forgotten love."
RELATED:More than 60 beautiful love quotes from literature
Charles Bukowski quotes about relationships
"Of course it's possible to love someone if you don't know them very well."
"Some like what you do, some hate what you do, but most just don't care."
“Human relations didn't work out anyway. Only the first two weeks there was some enthusiasm, then the participants lost interest. The masks fell off and real people emerged: madmen, morons, lunatics, avengers, sadists, murderers. Modern society created its own class and they feasted on each other. It was a life or death duel, in a pit.”
"And then there are some who
think so old
relationships can be
revived and made new
again.
but please
if you feel like that
not on the phone
Do not write
do not arrive"
"Our disappointment is between us."
"I want to be with you. It's so simple and so complicated."
"This is friendship, sharing experiences, prejudices."
"It seemed to me that I had never known
another human being on earth
so disheartening to my happiness
with my father.
and it looked like he had
the same effect
he."
"Don't do this. Don't love me."
“…beware of the common man, the common woman
be careful with her love, her love is average
find the middle."
"When a sexy woman meets an inmate, one of them changes."
“That was love, that was bravery. Shit, who could really stand me? Anyone who could take me had a lot of forgiveness from the soul.
Charles Bukowski quotes about life and death
"You have to die sometimes before you can really live."
"Death is nothing brother, life is hard."
"My whole life has been about fighting for a single hour to do what I want to do."
"Some people never go crazy. What a horrible life they must lead."
"I wasn't going anywhere and neither was the rest of the world. We were all waiting to die, doing little things to fill the space in the meantime. Some of us didn't even do little things. We were vegetables."
"How the hell can a person enjoy being woken up at 6:30 a.m. with an alarm clock, jumping out of bed, getting dressed, force-feeding, shitting, urinating, brushing their teeth and hair, and fighting traffic to get get there?". Did you get to a place where you basically made a lot of money for someone else and they asked you to say thank you for the opportunity to do it?
"A lot of times people complain that they haven't done anything with their lives and then wait for someone to tell them they haven't."
"Age is not a crime, but the shame of a life wasted on purpose among so many lives wasted on purpose is."
“Nine-to-Five is one of the greatest atrocities that has happened to humanity. You give your life to a role that doesn't interest you."
"We are all going to die, all, what a circus! That alone should make us love, but no. We are terrified and crushed by trifles, nothing eats us."
“We wait and wait. All. Didn't the psychiatrist know that waiting was one of those things that drove people crazy? People have waited their whole lives. They waited for life, they waited for death. They lined up to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for cash. And if they didn't have money, they waited in longer lines. You waited to fall asleep and then you waited to wake up. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You're waiting for it to rain, you're waiting for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You were waiting in a psychiatrist's office with some psychopaths, wondering if you were one of them."
"Son of a bitch, where did you go?"
"The best often die by their own hands.
just to escape
and those who were left behind
can never be fully understood
because someone
I would never want
absent
outside
they"
“There will always be something that ruins our lives, it all depends on what or what finds us first. We are always ripe and ready for the taking.”
"Your life is your life
Don't let him reach wet submission.
See later.
There are exits.
There is a light somewhere.
can't be too light
but it comes to darkness.”
"Life is only as good as you let it be."
“I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I pick her up and talk to her: 'Hello love, how are you? When you come to me, I'll be ready.'
Charles Bukowski quotes about women
"I stopped looking for the girl of my dreams, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare."
"Once a woman turns on you, forget it. She may love you, then something changes inside her. She may see you die in the ditch, get hit by a car and spit on you."
"She's crazy but she's adorable. There's no lie in her fire."
"Many good men have been led under the bridge by a woman."
"He had wild, slightly crazy eyes. He also had an overload of compassion that was genuine enough and obviously cost him something."
"However, women, good women, scared me because they wanted your soul, after all, and what was left of mine I wanted to keep. Basically, I craved whores, bad women, because they were deadly and tough and had no personal claims. "Nothing was lost in the game. At the same time, he longed for a kind and good wife, despite the exorbitant price."
"The whole world is caught in your gaze
And finally
the universe is
gorgeous."
"I have never met such a beautiful young woman and at the same time so kind and intelligent. Where were your men? Where did they fail?"
"Beautiful thoughts and beautiful women never last."
“She hurt fewer people
that no one that I know
and if you look at it that way
Well, she made a better world.
She won."
"When you get married, they think you're finished. And if you don't have a wife, they think you're incomplete."
"Maybe she didn't save the world, but she made a huge improvement."
“What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.
Bukowski quotes about people and humanity
“You start saving the world by saving one man at a time; everything else is grandiose romance or politics.
"As anyone can tell, I'm not a very nice man. I don't know the word. I've always admired the bad boy, the bad boy, the son of a bitch. I don't like cleanliness." shaved boy with tie and good job. I like desperate men, men with broken teeth and broken minds and broken ways. You interest me. They are full of surprises and explosions. I also like vile women, drunken bitches. With baggy stockings and sloppy mascara faces. I'm more interested in perverts than saints. I can chill with bums because I'm a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like them molded by society."
"People are strange: they get upset over little things all the time, but hardly ever seem to notice something big as a total waste of their lives."
"People run from the rain but sit in bathtubs full of water."
"We are like roses that never bothered to bloom when they should have bloomed, and it's like the sun is sick of waiting."
"My heart is a thousand years old. I'm not like the others."
"The F-kers. I feel better there. Damn humanity. I feel better there."
“Beware of those who are constantly looking for crowds; they are nothing alone.
"Boring people. Anywhere on earth. Promoting boring people. What a horror show. The earth was full of them."
"Humanity, you sick son of a bitch."
"People without morals often thought they were freer, but they mostly lacked the ability to feel or love."
"If I bet on humanity, I would never redeem a ticket."
“Style is important. Many people shout the truth, but without style it is impotent”.
“People are the greatest
horror show on earth
were for
Century."
“You can forgive a fool because he only walks in one direction and fools no one. It's the scammers that make you feel bad."
"Dying in a war never stopped wars."
"But you know, only boring people get bored. You have to make a constant effort to feel alive."
"So that's what they wanted: lies. Nice lies. They needed it. People were dumb."
“No one can save you except yourself, and you deserve to be saved. It's a hard war to win, but if there's anything worth winning, it's this."
"If you lose your soul and you know it, you still have a soul to lose."
“People are not good to each other.
maybe if they were
our death would not be so sad.”
“There are many things that bother me. I know I never met a man on the street I liked, most of them exuded some kind of ether of disgust and tripping and clay-eating, snot-eating resentment. I don't like humanity at all. this is my confessional, dad, pass me the wine.
"I have never met another man who wanted to be. And even if it is an illusion, a stroke of luck."
"So that's what they wanted: lies. Nice lies. They needed that. People were dumb. It would be easy for me."
“This is really important: take time off. Speed is of the essence. Without stopping completely and doing nothing for a long time, you will lose everything... just by doing nothing, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very little. That's why they're so angry, frustrated, angry, and full of hate."
Charles Bukowski quotes about introversion
“People leave me empty. I have to go get gas.
“I'm not a snob; It's just that I don't care what most people have to say or what they want to do, especially my time."
"I wasn't a misanthrope or a misogynist, but I liked being alone. It was nice to sit and smoke and drink alone in a confined space. I was always good company."
"I tend to use things to read so I don't have to look at people."
"I have a problem, I don't hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I don't have hate. I have an escape mechanism."
"I don't hate people, I just feel better when they're not around."
“People make me small;
the more i sit and listen to them
The more empty I feel, but I don't understand
the thought of them feeling empty, i feel
do you like its sound?
mouths".
"I didn't like parties. I didn't know how to dance and people scared me, especially at parties."
"People don't do much with me."
"It was nice to sit alone in a small space, smoke and drink. I was always good company."
Bukowski quotes about loneliness
"There is such a loneliness in this world that it can be seen in the slow movement of the hands of a clock."
"Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt right, but never right."
"True loneliness is not necessarily limited to being alone."
“I was a man who lived in solitude; without them he was like a different person without food or water.
"There are worse things
than to be alone
but it often takes time
decades to realize
and especially when you do
It's too late
and there is nothing worse
that too late."
"I was never alone. I was in a room, I felt suicidal. I was depressed, I felt terrible, terrible about everything, but I never felt like someone else could walk into that space and heal what was bothering me…or that." any number of people could enter that space. In other words, loneliness is something I've never dealt with because I've always had this terrible loneliness itch. At a party or in a stadium full of fans, I can feel lonely. Quoting Ibsen: "The strongest men are the loneliest." I never thought, "Well, a nice blonde will come here and give me a fucking job, rub my balls, and I'll be fine." help. You know the typical crowd: "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Sit there?" Okay, yes. Because there is nothing out there. It's stupid. Stupid people mix with stupid people. Make yourself ridiculous. I never bothered to run out at night. I hid in bars because I didn't want to hide in factories. . That's all. I'm sorry to all the millions, but I've never been alone. I like myself. I am the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!
“Each day without loneliness has weakened me. I was not proud of my loneliness; but he needed. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me."
"There is a blue bird in my heart
Who wants to go out, but I'm very difficult, I say:
'Stay there, I won't let anyone see you'."
Bukowski's quotes about madness
“Some lose their minds and become soulless, insane. Some lose all their soul and become minds, intellectuals. Some lose both and are accepted."
"You must burn from top to bottom and then maybe sideways for a while and your insides disturbed by a tyrant and demon ladies, you must walk teetering on the brink of madness, you must starve like an alley cat in winter, you must grapple stupid enough to live in at least a dozen cities, so maybe for a moment you know where you are."
"Understand me. I'm not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I don't have time for things that have no soul."
"Why don't we go back there and tell them what happened? Because nothing happened, except that life has made everyone crazy and stupid. In this society, only two things count: not being caught penniless and not being caught catch". caught high."
“You say that you often feel this madness.
What do you do when it hits you?
I write poetry
poetry is madness
Non-poetry is madness.
it's crazy
Madness is ugliness.
what is ugly
something different for everyone.”
Charles Bukowski quotes about the free soul
"The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it, basically because you feel good, really good when you're around or with them."
“Everything you have has to fit in the suitcase; then maybe your mind is free.
"I am a series of small wins and big losses."
"He wasn't a petty thief. He wanted the whole world or nothing."
“The soul has no skin; the soul only has an interior that wants to sing, anyway, don't you hear brothers? Hush, can't you hear it, brothers? A hot bit of one - and a new Cadillac ain't gonna do shit.
"I believe that everything should be available to everyone, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, marijuana, opium, whatever works. Nothing in the world that is available to anyone should be confiscated and illegal by others. men in apparently more powerful and advantageous positions.”
Charles Bukowski quotes about drinking
"I don't like prison, it has the wrong bars."
That's the problem with drinking, I thought as she poured me a drink. When something bad happens, you drink to forget it; when something good happens, you drink to celebrate; and if nothing happens, you drink to make a difference”.
"Drinking is an emotional thing. It shakes up the pattern of everyday life, of everything staying the same. It tears you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I feel that drinking is a kind of suicide where you can go back to life. Life and starting over the next day. It's like committing suicide and then being reborn. I think I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lifetimes now."
"Whisky and wine entered our veins when the blood was too weak to continue to flow."
"The cat was brutal, but he didn't care. That told him he had been somewhere else, a good place."
"Drinking is a different way of thinking, a different way of living. It gives you two lives instead of one."
"I don't think I ever wrote a poem when I was completely sober. But I wrote some good ones or some bad ones under the hammer of a black hangover when I didn't know if another drink or a blade would be better." ."
"Do you have cigarettes?" she asks. "If i say
"I have some cigars." "Matches?" She asks.
"Enough to set fire to Rome." "Whiskey?"
"Enough whiskey for a Mississippi full of pain."
"You're drunk?" "Not yet."
“I like to change liquor stores often because the clerks have learned their habits of going day and night and buying large quantities. I could feel them wondering why I wasn't dead yet and I felt uncomfortable. You probably haven't thought about it, but that's when a man gets paranoid when he gets 300 hangovers a year."
"I still have some whiskey left, so I have a chance."
"I think I need a drink."
"Almost everyone does, they just don't know it."
"When you were drinking, the world was still out there, but now it wasn't in your throat."
"Alcohol is probably one of the best things that ever existed, next to me."
“I write directly from the typewriter. I call this my "machine gun". I hit hard, usually late at night while drinking wine, listening to classical music on the radio and smoking Mangalore Ganesh Beedies.
"I was attracted to the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I had no God, I had no politics, I had no ideas, I had no ideals."
"I hid in bars because I didn't want to hide in factories."
"Keep on with the beer. Beer is continuous blood. A constant lover.
"My bottle is in the cupboard
Like a dwarf waiting to scratch my prayers.
I drink and cough like an idiot in a symphony
The sun and the crazy birds are everywhere.
the phone rings and plays your ringtone
against the odds of the crooked sea;
I'm drinking deep and steady now
I drink to paradise
and death
and the lie of love."
"'What? You mean I'd dare drink straight out of prison because I was drunk?' So you need more than one drink.
Charles Bukowski quotes about passion
"Don't do this unless the sun inside you burns your stomach."
“If you want to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like this. You will be alone with the gods and the nights will burn with fire. You will lead life straight to the perfect laugh. It's the only good fight there is."
“If you want to try, go all the way. It could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs, and maybe your sanity. That could mean not eating for three or four days. That could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean prison. It can mean mockery. It can mean mockery - isolation. Isolation is the present. Anything else is a test of your stamina, of how much you really want to do it. And you will do it despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything imaginable.”
"If it doesn't shoot out of your soul, unless standing still makes you crazy, suicidal, or murderous, don't."
Quotes from Bukowski on art and censorship
"Great art is horses - t, buy clubs."
"Nothing is worse than taking a shit, stretching out your hand, and finding the toilet paper container empty. Even the most horrible person in the world deserves to dry their hair."
"Doing something boring with style, that's what I call art."
"The way to create art is to burn and destroy common concepts and replace them with new truths that flow from the mind and heart."
"Good people save the world so that bastards like me can continue to create art and become immortal. If you read this after I die, it means I made it."
“An intellectual says a simple thing in a harsh way. An artist says something difficult in a simple way.
"Censorship is the tool of those who feel the need to hide facts from themselves and from others."
“Creating art means
go crazy alone
forever."
“…beware of those who rush to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know”.
Charles Bukowski quotes about beauty
"Since some people told me I was ugly, I have always preferred the shadow to the sun, the dark to the light."
“I was consumed by 3 simple things: alcohol, despair, loneliness; and 2 more: youth and beauty.”
“Beauty is nothing, beauty does not stay. You don't know how lucky you are to be ugly, because when people like you, you know it's for something else."
"Oh, I don't mean you're pretty, not in the way people think you're pretty. Your face looks friendly. But your eyes are beautiful. They're wild, crazy, like an animal looking out of a burning forest."
"I would often stand alone in front of the mirror and wonder how ugly a person could be."
"The best thing about beauty is finding out it's gone."
Bukowski quotes about animals
"If you're feeling down, just look at the cats and they'll make you feel better because they know everything is the way it is."
“Animals never worry about heaven or hell. Nor I. Maybe that's why we understand each other."
"In the next life I want to be a cat. Sleep 20 hours a day waiting to be fed. Sit and lick my ass. People are very miserable, angry and stubborn."
"Dogs and angels are not far apart."
"when i feel
low
all i have to do is
take care of my cats
it million
period
Returns"
"People just weren't interesting. Maybe they shouldn't have been. But animals, birds and even insects were. I couldn't figure it out."
"The cat is the handsome devil."
“Animals are inspiring. You don't know how to lie. They are forces of nature.
Funny quotes from Charles Bukowski
"I just want a cup of hot black coffee and I don't want to hear about your problems."
"The problem with the world is that smart people are full of doubts, while stupid people are full of confidence."
"'Honey,' I said, 'I'm a genius, but no one knows it except me.'"
"Most everyone is born a genius and buried as a jerk."
"The first place smelled like work, so I took the second one."
“Any idiot can beg for any job; it takes a wise man to do it without working.
"If there are junkyards in hell, love is the dog that guards the gates."
"My ambition is hampered by laziness."
"You cannot overestimate the stupidity of the general public."
"If you want to know who your friends are, you will go to jail."
"He was one of those guys who looked like a genius. I looked like a dishwasher, so those guys always pissed me off a little."
"People got so used to seeing shit in the movie that they didn't even realize it was shit."
"I don't have any particular talent or ability, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic."
Charles Bukowski on inspiration
“One spark can set an entire forest on fire. Just a spark. Save this."
"What matters most is how well you walk through fire."
“Nothing teaches you more than regrouping after failure and moving on. But most people are tormented by fear. They are so afraid of failure that they fail. They are very conditioned, very used to being told what to do. He starts with the family, goes through school and reaches the business world.
"Stop insisting on clearing your head, clear your fucking heart instead."
"Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don't swim in the same swamp.
Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.”
“Yes, the true miracles are the thousands of little people who know exactly what they are doing. I used to look to higher places for inspiration, but the higher you go, like Plato or God, the less space there is to stand."
"It's a fucking world. Well, go ahead anyway, what the hell.
"Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear."
"Sometimes goodness is found in the middle of hell."
"Sometimes you get out of bed in the morning and think I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside and remember all the times you felt that way."
“The nights you fight best are
When the game is patched,
when the crowd cries out for his blood.
The nights you fight best are
on a night like this
while you chase a thousand black rats from your brain,
as you rise up against the impossible,
when you become the brother of the tender sister of joy
Continue
Nevertheless."
"Don't ignore it. Fuck it all. Cry your heart out. Then fuck some more.
"If something burns your soul with intent and desire, it is your duty to turn it to ashes. Any other form of existence will be just another boring book in life's library."
“If you held out long enough, luck usually followed. However, most people couldn't wait for happiness, so they gave up."
“Wherever the crowd goes, it runs the other way. You are always wrong.
Charles Bukowski quotes about sadness and pain
"I wanted to cry, but nothing came of it. It was just kind of a sad, sad disease, when you can't get any worse. I think you know that. I think everyone knows that from time to time. But I think I knew that." . many times, many times.
"My drunken soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees in the world."
"The story of melancholy
hugs us all."
"Are you becoming what you've always hated?"
"Not my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. Damn."
“I was not determined for anything; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I wasn't made to be an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too difficult. What he really wanted was just a soft, misty space to live and be alone.
"I've had so many stab wounds to the face that when they give me a flower, I can't tell what it is. It takes time."
"There is half everywhere nowhere."
"I've gotten so used to melancholy that I receive it like an old friend."
"I had no interests. I wasn't interested in anything. I had no idea how to escape. At least the others got a taste of life. They seemed to understand something I didn't understand. Maybe I missed it. It was possible" Many times I felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was nowhere to go."
"Sometimes I knew that if I slept, I would die."
"I love him so much he's not here and I don't know where to go."
"I fell into my pathetic cutting period. With people, good and bad, my senses often just shut down, get tired, give up. I'm polite. I agree. I pretend to understand because I don't want anyone to hurt me. That is the weakness that has caused me the most trouble. When I try to be nice to others, my soul often breaks into some kind of spiritual mass. It doesn't matter. My brain shuts down. I listen. I will respond. And they are too stupid to know I'm not there."
"Everything was forever sad, gloomy, damn it. Even the weather was cheeky and wicked."
"I don't know about other people, but when I wake up in the morning and put my shoes on, I think, Jesus Christ, now what?"
"Every man's hell is in a different place:
mine is only top and back
my shattered face."
"Sometimes those eyes in your brain look at you."
"I wasn't alone. I had no self-pity. I was trapped in a life I couldn't understand."
“the tired sunset and the tired
People -
It takes a lifetime to die and
no time for
No."
"Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire... Pain comes, BANG, and sits on you. It's real. And to anyone watching, you look stupid. Like if you had suddenly turned into a jerk. There is no cure for this unless you meet someone who understands how you feel and knows how to help you.
"However, those who escape from Hell never talk about it, and nothing bothers them after that."
“But my whole life has been about fighting for a single hour to do what I want to do. Something has always prevented me from finding myself.
"We are all unhappy most of the time, and what we do under constant stress reflects who/what we are."
"I want to cry, but pain is stupid. I want to believe, but faith is a graveyard."
"I was born to push roses down the avenue of the dead."
"After all, there is nothing here for death to take away."
"The courage it takes to get out of bed
Tomorrow
face the same things
and again
Guerra
huge."
Charles Bukowski quotes about hope and happiness
“Some moments are beautiful, others are
the best, some are worth it
Write
one."
"We're not even asking for happiness, just a little less pain."
“That was all a man needed: hope. It was hopelessness that discouraged a man.”
"Have you ever been in a room full of people in your life who would only help you if you looked at them and listened to them. It was one of those magical moments. I knew it."
"The less I needed, the better I felt."
“either peace or happiness
let it envelop you"
Quotes from Bukowski on religion
“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions have been answered. But for those of us who don't readily accept God's formula, the big answers aren't set in stone. We adapt to new conditions and discoveries. We are flexible. Love does not have to be an order and faith does not have to be a saying. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, the state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to end the war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will shake to take us."
"If you want to know where God is, ask a drunk."
"The more shit you believe, the better for you."
"I was an agnostic. Agnostics didn't have much to discuss."
"Youth is the only religion."
Bukowski on politics and society
"Some men hope for a revolution, but when you rise up and set up your new government, you find that your new government is still the same old father, just put on a cardboard mask."
“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and govern later; In a dictatorship you don't have to waste time voting."
“Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste. In the end, it was all about who had the most votes. In the land of moles, a mole was king."
"People who believe in politics are like people who believe in God: they suck the wind with crooked straws."
"I think most people only think about injustice when it happens to them."
“Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there is only bad government and worse government.
"Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to all colors."
"The worst men have the best jobs, the best men have the worst jobs, are unemployed or locked up in mental hospitals."
“The worst sin in the world is when the poor try to rob the poor. The enemy is quite obvious, why should we weaken our ranks?
"There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little."
Quotes by Charles Bukowski about books, writing and poetry
"Writing is like sleeping with a beautiful woman and then she gets up, goes to her bag and gives me a handful of money."
“I kept writing, not because I thought I was very good, but because I thought they were very bad, including Shakespeare, all of them. Affected formalism, like chewing cardboard.”
"Writers are desperate people, and when they stop being desperate, they stop being writers."
"Poetry is what happens when nothing else can."
"It's so easy to be a poet
and be so heavy
a man."
"If you start lying to yourself in a poem just to make a poem, you will fail."
"Beware of those who always read books."
"Those who wrote literature did not write life."
"If I stop writing, I'm dead. And that's the only way to stop writing: dead."
"Without literature, life is hell."
"You can never be sure if it's good poetry or bad acidity."
"Literature is an enhancement of life."
“I have sometimes referred to writing as a disease. If so, I'm glad you caught me."
"Hey babe, when I write, I'm the hero of my s-t."
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