And alsoHemingway, I cannot think of a better craftsman for a single sentence than the late freelance poet and novelist,Charles Bukowski.
I picked Bukowski for the first time this year, starting with one of his most widely read works,the mail.
(I wrote my favorite quote from him and the twenty-five other books I've read so far this year,Here).
After two, maybe three pages, I wanted to slap myself in the face; I couldn't understand how I spent so much time on this planet without reading.
Although his writing style was less polished than Hemingway's, it had just as much impact and arguably more tenacity.
To the unknown, readingCharles BukowskiIt's like riding a honey badger: nothing is off limits, nothing too scary to write about, and you never know what the hell he's going to do or say next.
I did some research and here are Bukowski's most powerful lines in my opinion. Make sure you sit down. If he starts to feel dizzy, take a deep breath. You'll want to tune in to this prose.
Great art is horse shit, buy sticks.
An intellectual says a simple thing in a harsh way. An artist says a difficult thing in a simple way.
Find what you love and let it kill you.
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 this way.
People flee from the rain, but sit in bathtubs filled with water.
Nothing worse than finishing a good shit and then reaching over and finding the toilet paper container empty. Even the most terrible person in the world deserves to wipe their ass.
Baby I said I'm a genius but no one but me knows it
I think most people only think about injustice when it happens to them.
The tigers found me and I don't care.
And yet women, good women, scared me because, after all, they wanted your soul, and what was left of mine I wanted to keep.
Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.
The hour from nine to five is one of the greatest atrocities that has happened to humanity. You are giving your life to a function that does not interest you.
I wanted the whole world or nothing.
How the hell can a person enjoy being woken up at 6:30 a.m.? m. with an alarm clock, jump out of bed, get dressed, force-feed, shit, urinate, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get somewhere? Are you basically making someone else a lot of money and have you been asked to say thank you for the opportunity to do so?
Sometimes you just need to pee in the sink.
When you get married, they think you're finished, and when you don't have a wife, they think you're incomplete.
Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.
The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it, basically because it makes you feel good, really good, to be around or with them.
I want it so bad it's not there and I don't know where to go.
My beer drunk soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees in the world.
In my work as a writer, I only photograph what I see.
If you want to try it, go to the end. Otherwise, don't even start. It could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, and maybe even 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 you can imagine. If you want to try it, go to the end. 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.
What matters most is how well you walk through fire.
We are here to drink beer. We are here to end the war. We are here to laugh at adversity and live our lives so well that death will make us shudder.
Dogs and angels are not far apart.
It's all a waste of time unless you're doing really well, or doing well, or getting better, or threatening some kind of phantom happiness.
Genius can be the ability to say something profound in a simple way.
People are weird: they get mad all the time over trivial things, but hardly seem to notice when it comes to something big like the total waste of their lives.
You start saving the world by saving one man at a time; everything else is grandiose romance or politics.
The best often die by their own hand just to escape, and those left behind can never understand why anyone would want to get away from them.
Some people never go crazy. What a horrible life they must lead.
I don't like the guy with a shave and a tie and a good job. I like desperate men, men with broken teeth and broken minds and broken roads. I'm interested in you. They are full of surprises and explosions.
Beware of those who are constantly looking for crowds; they are nothing alone.
He asked: What makes a person a writer? Well, I said, it's easy. Either you put it on paper or you jump off a bridge.
In this country, some of us fuck more than we die, but most of us die better than we fuck.
I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, just texts, keeps little pictures.
We drink our coffee and pretend not to look at each other.
Still, I kept thinking about Lydia. The good parts of our relationship felt like a rat running around biting the inside of my stomach.
The worst thing for a writer is to meet another writer, and even worse, to meet a bunch of other writers. Like flies in the same poop.
Why were you with a different woman every time you saw a woman like that?
But your eyes - they are beautiful. They are wild, crazy, like an animal peering out of a burning forest.
Human relations were strange. I mean, you dated someone for a while, you ate, you slept, and you lived with them, you loved them, you talked to them, you went places together, and then you stopped. Then there was a short period where you weren't with anyone, then another woman showed up and you ate with her and had sex with her and everything felt so normal like you were waiting for her and she was waiting for you. I never really felt alone; Sometimes it felt good, but it never felt good.
I heard a long, frantic howl like that of a wolverine thrown into arctic snow and left to bleed and die alone...
I enjoyed the lobster and drank it with a good wine. Good Guy. I always liked you with your pink and red shell, dangerous and slow.
It was better to stay away from other writers and just do your job...
People used to be much better on their cards than they were in real life. In this sense, they were very much like poets.
There is no better way to drink than at a small table on a white tablecloth with a beautiful woman.
Fiction is a life enhancement.
I'm just an alcoholic who became a writer so I could stay in bed until noon.
I was sentimental about many things: women's slippers under the bed; a hairpin left on the dresser; the way they said, "I'm going to pee." hair bands; walking with them down the avenue at 1:30 am, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talk; The arguments; thinking about suicide; eat together and feel good; the jokes; the laughter of nothing; feel the wonder in the air; being in a parked car together; compare past loves at 3 am; hear you snore; hear them snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always ahead, always surpassed; She is reading a newspaper alone in a restaurant and is dizzy because she is now married to a dentist with an IQ. from 95; jogging trails, parks, picnics in parks; even prisons; your boring friends; your boring friends; your drink, your dance; your flirting, her flirting; the pills of her, the fuck of her next to her and she does the same; sleep together.
But if you lied to a man about his talent just because he was sitting across from you, that was the most unforgivable lie of all, because it kept him going, going, which was the worst path for a man without real talent. ., finally your life to the trash. But many people have done just that, especially friends and family.
hello death. But I was almost 6 decades. I gave you so many direct shots at me that should have been yours a long time ago. I want to be buried near the racetrack... where I can hear the race.
Sandra is the lady of the room, slender and tall with earrings in a long dress, always in high heels, liquor, pills and alcohol.
My six foot goddess makes me laugh, the laugh of the mutilated who still need love.
Sex was always on her mind, she carried it around like something in a paper bag.
Your boys can keep their virgins, give me hot old ladies in high heels with asses that forgot to age.
His poems about girls will still be around 50 years from now, when the girls are gone, my editor will call me.
She's from Texas and weighs 103 pounds and stands in front of the mirror surveying oceans of reddish hardness that cascade down her back to her behind.
When I think about his life and compare it to more colorful, original and beautiful lives, I realize that he has hurt fewer people than anyone I know (and by hurt I mean just hurt). She went through some terrible times, times where maybe I should have helped her more because she's the mother of my only child and we were great lovers once, but she got through it, like I said, hurting fewer people than anyone else. known, known, and if you put it that way, well, she made a better world. She won. Frances, this poem is for you.
She knew what she wanted and I didn't.
I know this poet: he is like all of us: he vomits everywhere for money.
That's what they want: a goddamn god flashing a luminous sign in the middle of hell. That's what they want, this bunch of boring, inarticulate, safe, boring carnivalesque.
And if you have the ability to love, love yourself first.
And no one finds it, but they keep searching and crawling in and out of beds.
I could have had her once. Do you think I could have saved her?
They disgust me waiting for death with as much passion as a traffic light.
Seeing the bull catch the matador is the best.
I saw a beautiful blonde girl hug a young man and kiss him apparently hungrily and I stood there and watched until they parted.
When I think of myself, I think of someone making love to you when I'm not around.
And you made me up and I made you up and that's why we don't get along.
There is always a woman who will save you from another.
We see too late: after the tail has been swallowed, the heart follows
She has red hair like lightning from heaven.
I will die alone as long as I live.
I was a man who lived in solitude; without her I was like a different person without food or water. Every day without loneliness weakened me.
Encourage. Maybe you'll be famous after you're dead.
She must have a suction pump for a pussy.
Look at her hands. She has the most beautiful hands. You can see that it never worked.
I scooped out the salt and pepper, seasoned the broth, cracked the biscuits and put them on top of the dizziness.
When you drank, the world was still out there, but now it wasn't in your throat.
I'm a genius, but no one knows it except me.
As usual, Carmen was wearing a tight knit dress that fit her like a balloon caught in the air, maybe tighter.
We really had nothing to do but drink wine and make love.
How the hell can a man enjoy being woken up at 6:30 a.m.? with an alarm clock, jumping out of bed, getting dressed, force-feeding, shitting, pissing, brushing teeth and hair, and navigating traffic struggling to get to a place where was it essential? Did you win a lot of money for someone else and they asked you to say thank you for the opportunity to do so?
She was both desperate and demanding and somehow beautiful, but she didn't have enough reason to become what she idealized.
Some people don't like someone famous. Some people don't like people who aren't.
Under the sun and the rain, day and night, pain is a flower, pain is a flower that blooms all the time.
All people eventually fall apart and there it is: just empty ashtrays in a room or strands of hair on a comb in the fading moonlight.
If it gets bad enough, the kitten will kill the lion.
Death comes slowly like ants to a fallen fig.
My typewriter would be squealing like a raped bear by now.
It is difficult to find a man whose poetry does not disappoint.
It is more dangerous than all armies ever.
Forget my brother, I'm my own keeper.
The loneliness in this world is so great that it can be recognized by the slow movement of a clock hand.
VonCole Schäfer(everything but the 95 lines you just read).