Discover a wealth of wisdom and insight from Charles Bukowski through their most impactful and thought-provoking quotes and sayings. Expand your perspective with their inspiring words and share these beautiful Charles Bukowski quote pictures with your friends and followers on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blog - all free of charge. We've compiled the top 1546 Charles Bukowski quotes for you to explore and share with others.

There is no such thing as beauty, especially in the human face ... what we call the physiognomy. It's all a mathematical and imagined alignment of features. Like, if the nose doesn't stick out too much, the sides are in fashion, if the earlobes aren't too large, if the hair is long ... It's kind of a mirage of generalization. People think of certain faces as beautiful, but, truly, in the final measure, they are not. It's a mathematical equation of zero. "True beauty" comes, of course, of character. Not through how the eyebrows are shaped. So many women that I'm told are beautiful ... hell, it's like looking into a soup bowl. By Charles Bukowski Thing Human Beauty Mathematical Beautiful

there is a loneliness in this world so greatthat you can see it in the slow movement ofthe hands of a clock.people so tiredmutilatedeither by love or no love.people just are not good to each otherone on one.the rich are not good to the richthe poor are not good to the poor.we are afraid.our educational system tells usthat we can all bebig-ass winners.it hasn't told usabout the guttersor the suicides.or the terror of one personaching in one placealoneuntouchedunspoken towatering a plant. By Charles Bukowski Good Plant Loneliness World Greatthat

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. By Charles Bukowski Told Campus Hide Decided Place

But then if you lied to a man about his talent just because he was sitting across from you, that was the most unforgivable lie of them all, because that was telling him to go on, to continue which was the worst way for a man without real talent to waste his life, finally. But many people did just that, friends and relatives mostly. By Charles Bukowski Man Finally Talent Life Lied

That which interests most people leaves me without any interest at all. This includes a list of things such as: social dancing, riding roller coasters, going to zoos, picnics, movies, planetariums, watching tv, baseball games; going to funerals, weddings, parties, basketball games, auto races, poetry readings, museums, rallies, demonstrations, protests, children's plays, adult plays ... I am not interested in beaches, swimming, skiing, Christmas, New Year's, the 4th of July, rock music, world history, space exploration, pet dogs, soccer, cathedrals and great works of Art. How can a man who is interested in almost nothing write about anything? Well, I do. I write and I write about what's left over: a stray dog walking down the street, a wife murdering her husband, the thoughts and feelings of a rapist as he bites into a hamburger sandwich; life in the factory, life in the streets and rooms of the poor and mutilated and the insane, crap like that, I write a lot of crap like that By Charles Bukowski Write Games Plays Interests Interest

there's nothing todiscussthere's nothing torememberthere's nothing toforgetit's sadand it's notsadseems themost sensiblethinga person can doissitwith drink inhandas the wallswavetheir goodbyesmilesone comes throughit allwith a certain amount ofefficiency andbraverythenleavessome acceptthe possibility ofGodto help themgetthroughotherstake itstaight onand to theseI drink tonight. By Charles Bukowski Drink Tonight Todiscussthere Torememberthere Toforgetit

To ask them to legalize pot is something like asking them to put butter on the handcuffs before they place them on you, 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, or madhouses or mechanical cunts or 162 baseball games in a season. or vietnam or israel or the fear of spiders. your love washing her yellow false teeth in the sink before you screw. By Charles Bukowski Pot Whiskey Suits Baseball Spiders

The bar was the best place to hide in. time came under your control, time to wade in, time to do nothing in. no guru was needed, no god. nothing expected but yourself and nothing lost to the unexpected. By Charles Bukowski Time Control Needed God Bar

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless. By Charles Bukowski Life Things Sense Structure Finally

I could understand the moon leaning across a bar on skid rowand asking for a drink, but I couldn't understand anything about myself,I was murdered, I was shit, I was a tentful of dogs,I was poppies mowed down by machine-gun fireI was a hotshot wasp in a webI was less and less and still reaching forsomething, and I thought of her corny remarka night or so ago:You have wounded eyes. By Charles Bukowski Understand Drink Murdered Shit Forsomething

There was something to be learned about writing from watching boxing matches or going to the racetrack. The message wasn't clear but it helped me. That was the important part: the message wasn't clear. It was wordless, like a house burning, or an earthquake or a flood, or a woman getting out of a car, showing her legs. I didn't know what other writers needed; I didn't care, I couldn't read them anyway. I was locked into my own habits, By Charles Bukowski Racetrack Message Learned Writing Watching

Consummation Of GriefI even hear the mountainsthe way they laughup and down their blue sidesand down in the waterthe fish cryand the water is their tears.I listen to the wateron nights I drink awayand the sadness becomes so greatI hear it in my clockit becomes knobs upon my dresserit becomes paper on the floorit becomes a shoehorna laundry ticketit becomescigarette smokeclimbing a chapel of dark vines. . .it matters littlevery little love is not so bador very little lifewhat countsis waiting on wallsI was born for thisI was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead. By Charles Bukowski Hear Consummation Vines Griefi Mountainsthe

Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, just look at the cats, you'll feel better, because they know that everything is, just as it is. By Charles Bukowski Good Cats Bunch Bad Feeling

Look, you're small-town. I've had over 50 jobs, maybe a hundred. I've never stayed anywhere long. What I am trying to say is, there is a certain game played in offices all over America. The people are bored, they don't know what to do, so they play the office-romance game. Most of the time it means nothing but the passing of time. Sometimes they do manage to work off a screw or two on the side. But even then, it is just an offhand pasttime, like bowling or t.v. or a New Year's Eve party. You've got to understand that it doesn't mean anything and then you won't get hurt. Do you understand what I mean?"I think that Mr. Partisan is sincere."You're going to get stuck with that pin, babe, don't forget what I told you. Watch those slicks. They are as phony as a lead dime. By Charles Bukowski Smalltown Game Time Jobs America

I found the best thingI could dowas just to type awayat my own workand let the dyingdieas they always have. By Charles Bukowski Found Thingi Dowas Type Awayat

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. By Charles Bukowski Lives Lot Man Bring Money

I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being ... Art is its own excuse, and it's either Art or it's something else. It's either a poem or a piece of cheese. By Charles Bukowski Poets Manifesto Art Honest Confess

The morning interviews were always the hardest, hung-over, trying to get the beer down. No, I have no idea why I am a writer. No, my writing has no particular meaning that I know of. Celine? Oh sure. Why not? Do I like women? Well, I'd rather fuck most of them than live with them. What do I think is important? Good wine, good plumbing and to be able to sleep late in the mornings. Are you really disturbing me? Of course you are. Do you expect me to start lying at the age of 58? Buy me a drink. By Charles Bukowski Hungover Hardest Interviews Beer Good

Writers are nothing but beggars with a good line. By Charles Bukowski Writers Line Beggars Good

I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn't particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn't have to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall me, it sickened me. The thought of being a lawyer or a councilman or an engineer, anything like that, seemed impossible to me. To get married, to have children, to get trapped in the family structure. To go someplace to work every day and to return. It was impossible. To do things, simple things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day ... was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep. By Charles Bukowski Day Someplace Poor Road Ahead

The flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh. By Charles Bukowski Flesh Covers Bone Soul Beds

little sun little moon little dogand a little to eat and a little to loveand a little to live forin a little roomfilled with littlemicewho gnaw and dance and run while I sleepwaiting for a little deathin the middle of a little morningin a little cityin a little statemy little mother deadmy little father deadin a little cemetery somewhere.I have onlya little timeto tell you this:watch out forlittle death when he comes runningbut like all the billions of little deathsit will finally mean nothing and everything:all your little tears burning like the dove,wasted. By Charles Bukowski Watch Dovewasted Sun Moon Dogand

Then I take a dump. Feel better. Take off my clothes and step into the pool. Ice water. But great. I walk along toward the deep end of the pool, the water rising inch by inch, chilling me. Then I plunge below the water. It's restful. The world doesn't know where I am. I come up, swim to the far edge, find the ledge, sit there. It must be about the 9th or 10th race. The horses are still running. I plunge again into the water, being aware of my stupid whiteness, of my age hanging onto me like a leech. Still, it's OK. I should have been dead 40 years ago. I rise to the top, swim to the far edge, get out. By Charles Bukowski Water Dump Pool Swim Edge

My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it's much better to be killed by a lover.~ Falsely yours By Charles Bukowski Kill Dearfind Love Youlet Drain

Wherever the crowd goes run in the other direction. They're always wrong. By Charles Bukowski Direction Crowd Run Wrong

The ladies usually go for the biggest damn fool they can find; that is why the human race stands where it does today: we have bred the clever and lasting Casanovas, all hollow inside, like the chocolate Easter bunnies we foster upon our poor children. By Charles Bukowski Casanovas Easter Find Today Inside

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockeryisolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is. By Charles Bukowski Start Wives Girlfriends Relatives Mind

And when you write a poem within the accepted poem-form, making it sound like a poem because a poem is a poem is a poem, you are saying "good morning" in that poem, and well, your morals are straight and you have not said SHIT, but wouldn't it be wonderful if you could ... instead of sweating out the correct image, the precise phrase, the turn of a thought ... simply sit down and write the god damned thing, throwing on the color and sound, shaking us alive with the force, the blackbirds, the wheat fields, the ear in the hand of the whore, sun, sun, sun, SUN!; let's make poetry the way we make love; let's make poetry and leave the laws and the rules and the morals to the churches and the politicians; let's make poetry the way we tilt the head back for the good liquor; let a drunken bum make his flame, and some day, Robert, I'll think of you, pretty and difficult, measuring vowels and adverbs, making rules instead of poetry. By Charles Bukowski Poem Sun Make Shit Poetry

It was true that I didn't have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so? By Charles Bukowski Ambition Place Reserved True People

Long before I became 'rich and famous' I just sat round drinking wine and staring at the walls. By Charles Bukowski Long Rich Walls Famous Sat

I tried some more. It was tasting better. I was feeling better. "This stuff belongs to your father, Baldy. I shouldn't drink it all." "He doesn't care. He's stopped drinking." Never had I felt so good. It was better than masturbating. I went from barrel to barrel. It was magic. Why hadn't someone told me? With this, life was great, a man was perfect, nothing could touch him. I stood up straight and looked at Baldy. "Where's your mother? I'm going to fuck your mother! By Charles Bukowski Baldy Mother Barrel Tasting Father

When I get out, I thought, I am going to wait a while and then I am going to come back to this place, I am going to look at it from the outside and know exactly what's going on in there, and I'm going to stare at those walls and I'm going to make up my mind never to get on the inside of them again. By Charles Bukowski Thought Place Wait Back Stare

At lunchtime (10:24 p.m.) I went out and bought the L.A. Times. By Charles Bukowski Lunchtime 1024 Times Bought

Credit and property and the 8-hour day are great friends of the Establishment. If you must buy things, pay cash, and only buy things of valueno trinkets, no gimmicks. Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase; then your mind might be free. And before you face the troops in the street, DECIDE and KNOW what you are going to replace them with and why. Romantic slogans won't do. Have a definite program, clearly worded, so if DO win you will have a suitable and decent form of government. By Charles Bukowski Establishment Credit Day Buy Things

A dry period for me means perhaps going two or three nights without writing. I probably have dry periods but I'm not aware of them and I go on writing, only the writing probably isn't much good. By Charles Bukowski Writing Dry Nights Period Periods

Lydia came back to bed. We didn't kiss each other. We weren't going to have sex. I felt weary. I listened to the crickets. I don't know how much time went by. I was almost asleep, not quite, when Lydia suddenly sat straight up in bed. And she screamed. It was a loud scream. "What is it?" I asked. "Be quiet." I waited. Lydia sat there without moving, for what seemed to be about ten minutes. Then she fell back on her pillow. "I saw God," she said, "I just saw God." "Listen, you bitch, you are going to drive me crazy! By Charles Bukowski Lydia God Bed Back Sat

I paid, got up, walkedto the door, openedit.I heard the mansay, "that guy'snuts."out on the street Iwalked northfeelingcuriouslyhonored. By Charles Bukowski Iwalked Paid Walkedto Door Openediti

pull a string, a puppet moves ...each man must realizethat it can all disappear veryquickly:the cat, the woman, the job,the front tire,the bed, the walls, theroom; all our necessitiesincluding love,rest on foundations of sand --and any given cause,no matter how unrelated:the death of a boy in Hong Kongor a blizzard in Omaha ...can serve as your undoing.all your chinaware crashing to thekitchen floor, your girl will enterand you'll be standing, drunk,in the center of it and she'll ask:my god, what's the matter?and you'll answer: I don't know,I don't know ... By Charles Bukowski Omaha Matter Hong Kongor Theroom

Your parents don't give you much love, do they?''I don't need that stuff,' I told her.'Henry, everybody needs love.''I don't need anything.''You poor boy. By Charles Bukowski Henry Love Stuff Her Boy

one day Manuel returned to the place, andshe was gone - no argument, no note, justgone, all her clothesall her stuff, andManuel sat by the window and looked outand didn't make his jobthe next day or thenext day orthe day after, hedidn't phone in, helost his job, got aticket for parking, smokedfour hundred and sixty cigarettes, gotpicked up for common drunk, bailedout, wentto court and pleadedguilty.when the rent was up he moved from Beacon street, heleft the cat and went to live with his brother andthey'd get drunkevery nightand talk about how terriblelife was.Manuel never again smokedlong slim cigarsbecause Shirley always saidhowhandsome he lookedwhen he did. By Charles Bukowski Day Justgone Bailedout Manuel Beacon

I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me. I took a drink of wine. Suddenly By Charles Bukowski Man Solitude Water Thrived Food

I went over to see Marina two or three or four times a week. I knew as long as I could see the girl I would be all right ... . Soon after, I got a letter from Fay. She and the child were living in a hippie commune in New Mexico. It was a nice place, she said. Marina would be able to breathe there. She enclosed a little drawing the girl had made for me. By Charles Bukowski Week Times Marina Girl Fay

I walk into the kitchen, look at the typer down there on the floor. It's a dirty floor. It's a dirty typer that types dirty stories By Charles Bukowski Floor Kitchen Dirty Walk Typer

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. By Charles Bukowski Tune Catholicism India Beethoven Back

You know the typical crowd, Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. By Charles Bukowski Wow Friday Crowd Typical Night

What is your advice to young writers?" "Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes. By Charles Bukowski Drink Writers Advice Young Fuck

It was too much.The comfortable people made comfortable jokes about weather and things but I sat mostly silent saying a word or so when necessarya word or so trying to hide from them the fact that I was a fool and feeling terribleAnd I was numb, numb again,numb again again and again, numbness and pain swelling in me. By Charles Bukowski Word Comfortable Numb Numbness Muchthe

You are good but you are too emotional the way to whip life is to quietly frame the agony,study it and put it to sleep in the abstract. is there anything less abstract than dying everyday and on the last day? By Charles Bukowski Day Good Emotional Whip Life

And my own affairs were as bad, as dismal, as the day I had been born. The only difference was that now I could drink now and then, though never often enough. Drink was the only thing that kept a man from feeling forever stunned and useless. Everything else just kept picking and picking, hacking away. And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. God, they all had assholes and sexual organs and their mouths and their armpits. They shit and they chattered and they were dull as horse dung. The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair. But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun. I would certainly never be able to be happy, to get married, I could never have children. Hell, I couldn't even get a job as a dishwasher. By Charles Bukowski Bad Dismal Born Affairs Day

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. By Charles Bukowski Concern Work Phone Appointments Door

Three a.m. drunks, all over America, were staring at the walls, having finally give it up. You didn't have to be drunk to get hurt, to be zeroed out by a woman; but you could get hurt and become a drunk. You might think for a while, especially when you were young, that luck was with you, and sometimes it was. But there were all manner of averages and laws working that you know nothing about, even as you imagined things were going well. Some night, some hot summer Thursday, night you became the drunk, you were out there alone in a cheap rented room, and no matter how many times you'd been out there before, it was no help, it was even worse because you had got to thinking you wouldn't face it again. All you could do was light another cigarette, pour another drink, check the peeling walls for lips and eyes. What men and women did to each other was beyond comprehension. By Charles Bukowski America Drunk Hurt Staring Finally

Beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world By Charles Bukowski Average Love Genius Hatred Kill

For meobedience to another is the decay of self.for though every being is similareach being is differentand to herd our differencesunder one lawdegrades each self. By Charles Bukowski Meobedience Decay Selffor Similareach Differentand

Listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a bucket?no, I told him.well, what happens is that now and then one crabwill climb up on top of the othersand begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,then, just as he's about to escapeanother crab grabs him and pulls him backdown.really? I asked.really, he said, and this job is just like that, noneof the others want anybody to get out of here. that's just the way it is By Charles Bukowski Top Climb Listen Bucket Himwell

The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. By Charles Bukowski Chose Left Problem Choosing Evil

That scene in the office stayed with me. Those cigars, the fine clothes. I thought of good steaks, long rides up winding driveways that led to beautiful homes. Ease. Trips to Europe. Fine women. Were they that much more clever than I? The only difference was money, and the desire to accumulate it. I'd do it too! I'd save my pennies. I'd get an idea, I'd spring a loan. I'd hire and fire. I'd keep whiskey in my desk drawer. I'd have a wife with size 40 breasts and an ass that would make the paperboy on the corner come in his pants when he saw it wobble. I'd cheat on her and she'd know it and keep silent in order to live in my house with my wealth. I'd fire men just to see the look of dismay on their faces. I'd fire women who didn't deserve to be fired. By Charles Bukowski Scene Office Stayed Fire Fine

Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now. By Charles Bukowski Thing Emotional Drinking Life Joggles

There was something aboutthat city, thoughit didn't let me feel guiltythat I had no feeling for thethings so many othersneeded.it let me alone. By Charles Bukowski City Thoughit Aboutthat Feel Guiltythat

My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure. By Charles Bukowski Senselessly Mattered Objection War Kill

The psyche has been burned and left us senseless, the world has been darker than lights-out in a closet full of hungry bats, and the whiskey and wine entered our veins when blood was too weak to carry on By Charles Bukowski Senseless Bats Psyche Burned Left

I tried teeling myself that feeling guilty was just a sickness of some sort. That it was men without guilt who made progress in life. Men who were able to lie, to cheat, men who knew all the shortcuts. Cortez. He didn't fuck around. Neither did Vince Lombardi. But no matter how much I thought about it, I still felt bad. By Charles Bukowski Sort Men Teeling Feeling Guilty

I care for you, darling, I love you,the only reason I fucked L. is because you fuckedZ. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N.and because you fucked N. I had to fuckY. But I think of you constantly, I feel youhere in my belly like a baby, love I'd call it,no matter what happens I'd call it love, and soyou fucked C. and then before I could moveyou fucked W., so I had to fuck D. ButI want you to know that I love you, I think of youconstantly, I don't think I've ever loved anybodylike I love you. By Charles Bukowski Fucked Love Nand Darling Care

I never pump up my vulgarity. I wait for it to arrive in its own terms. By Charles Bukowski Vulgarity Pump Terms Wait Arrive

It was a beauty fire, it contained soul, the sides of sunshine mountains, hot streams of smiling fish, warm stockings smelling a bit like toast. I held my hand over the little flame. I had beautiful hands. that one thing I had. I had beautiful hands. By Charles Bukowski Fire Soul Mountains Hot Fish

I had a cigar in my mouth and whiskey on my breath. I felt like money. I looked like money. By Charles Bukowski Money Breath Cigar Mouth Whiskey

The ass is the face of the soul of sex. By Charles Bukowski Sex Ass Face Soul

(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.) By Charles Bukowski Printer Tense Ram Scrotum Realize

I've seen too many intellectuals lately. I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths. I get tired of battling for each space of air for the mind. That's why I stayed away from people for so long, and now that I am meeting people, I find that I must return to my cave. By Charles Bukowski Intellectuals Tired People Mouths Precious

Love poem to a stripper 50 years ago I watched the girls shake it and strip at The Burbank and The Follies and it was very sad and very dramatic as the light turned from green to purple to pink and the music was loud and vibrant, now I sit here tonight smoking and listening to classical music but I still remember some of their names: Darlene, Candy, Jeanette and Rosalie. Rosalie was the best, she knew how, and we twisted in our seats and made sounds as Rosalie brought magic to the lonely so long ago. now Rosalie either so very old or so quiet under the earth, this is the pimple-faced kid who lied about his age just to watch you. you were good, Rosalie in 1935, good enough to remember now when the light is yellow and the nights are slow. By Charles Bukowski Rosalie Darlene Candy Jeanette Music

Neal would just go on driving, neither grim or happy or sardonic, just there - doing the movements. I understood. it was necessary. it was his bull ring, his racetrack. it was holy and necessary By Charles Bukowski Neal Driving Sardonic Movements Grim

Thirty- eight years old and he was finished. He sipped at the coffee and remembered where he had gone wrong or right. He'd simply gotten tired of the insurance game, of the small offices and high glass partitions, the clients; he'd simply gotten tired of cheating on his wife, of squeezing secretaries in the elevator and in the halls;he'd gotten tired of Christmas parties and New Year's parties and birthdays, and payments on new cars and furniture payments light, gas, water the whole bleeding complex of necessities.He'd gotten tired and quit, that's all. The divorce came soon enough and the drinking came soon enough, and suddenly he was out of it. He had nothing, and he found out that having nothing was difficult too. It was another type of burden. If only there were some gentler road in between. It seemed a man only had two choices get in on the hustle or be a bum. By Charles Bukowski Tired Thirty Finished Simply Parties

I needed a vacation. I needed 5 women. I needed to get the wax out of my ears. My car needed an oil change. I'd failed to file my damned income tax. One of the stems had broken off of my reading glasses. There were ants in my apartment. I needed to get my teeth cleaned. My shoes were run down at the heels. I had insomnia. My auto insurance had expired. I cut myself every time i shaved. I hadn't laughed in 6 years. I tended to worry when there was nothing to worry about. And when there was something to worry about, i got drunk. By Charles Bukowski Needed Vacation Worry Women Ears

I could scream down 90 mountainsto less than dustif only one living human had eyes in the headand heart in the body,but there is no chance,my god,no chance.rat with rat dog with dog hog with hog,play the piano drunklisten to the drunk piano,realize the myth of mercystand stillas even a child's voice snarlsand we have not been fooled,it was only that we wanted to believe. By Charles Bukowski Dog Mountainsto Scream Dustif Living

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. By Charles Bukowski Cigarettes Matches Whiskey Rome Mississippi

There's nothing like privacy. You know, I like people. It's nice that they might like my books and all that ... but I'm not the book, see? I'm the guy who wrote it, but I don't want them to come up and throw roses on me or anything. I want them to let me breathe. By Charles Bukowski Privacy People Books Book Nice

You lose what individualism you have, if you have enough of course, you retain some of it, but most don't have enough, so they become watchers of game shows, y'know, things like that. Then you work the 8 hour job with almost a feeling of goodness, like you're doing something, and you get married, like marriage is a victory and you have children like having children is a victory, but most things people do are a total grind, marriage, birth, children, it's something they HAVE to do because they have nothing else to do. There is no glory in it, no esteem, no fire, their lives are flat and the earth is full of them. Sorry, but thats the way I see it. I could not accept the snail's pace 8-5, Johnnie Carson, merry christmas, happy new year, to me it's the sickest of all sick things. By Charles Bukowski Things Yknow Children Shows Victory

People need me. I fill them. If they can't see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But if I see them too often I get sick. It's hard to feed without getting fed. By Charles Bukowski People Sick Desperate Fill Fed

When I came it was in the face of everything decent, white sperm dripping down over the heads and souls of my dead parents. If I had been born a woman I would certainly have been a prostitute. Since I had been born a man, I craved women constantly, the lower the better. And yet women - good women - frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price. Either way I was lost. A strong man would give up both. I wasn't strong. So I continued to struggle with women, with the idea of women. By Charles Bukowski Women Decent White Parents Born

is it possible to love a human being? of course, especially if you don't know them too well. I like to watch them through my window, walking down the street. Stirkoff, you're a coward. of course, sir. what is your definition of a coward? a man who would think twice before fighting a lion with his bare hands. and what is your definition of a brave man? a man who doesn't know what a lion is. every man knows what a lion is. every man assumes that he does. and what is your definition of a fool? a man who doesn't realize that Time, Structure and Flesh are being mostly wasted. who then is a wise man? there aren't any wise men, sir. then there can't be any fools. if there isn't any night there can't be any day; if there isn't any white there can't be any black. I'm sorry, sir. I thought that everything was what it was, not depending on something else By Charles Bukowski Man Sir Definition Lion Love

We were in Jon's car. "I have the first part I need. The pain-killer. You see I had to go to a doctor for an ingrown toenail. He operated. Then he gave me a pain-killer afterwards. It worked great...""Where are we going?""You'll see. Anyhow, I had to go back to get the toe checked. I said to the doctor, 'That pain-killer was great, it lasted ten hours. Tell me about it.' He told me about it. Then I asked him, 'Can I see it?' And he took me to this medicine cabinet and pointed it out. 'Very interesting,' I said. We talked a bit more, then I left. But I had a bag with me, a small travelling bag. I left it by the medicine cabinet. Then I left the office, came back. 'Oh,' I told the receptionist, 'I left my bag.' I went to get the bag and there was nobody around. I opened the cabinet and took the pain-killer.""You can't do this," I told Jon."I must, " he answered. By Charles Bukowski Jon Left Bag Painkiller Cabinet

I reached over, opened it in the middle, and began reading Tolstoy's War and Peace. Nothing had changed. It was still a lousy book. By Charles Bukowski Peace Tolstoy War Opened Middle

Not being able to love fullythey will believe your love incompleteand then they will hate youand their hatred will be perfect By Charles Bukowski Love Perfect Fullythey Incompleteand Hate

But isn't there alwaysone good thingto look back on?think ofhow many cups of coffee wedrank together. By Charles Bukowski Alwaysone Good Thingto Back Ofhow

I don't think I'll travel anymore. Travel is nothing but an inconvenience. There is always enough trouble where you are. By Charles Bukowski Anymore Travel Inconvenience Trouble

The reason so much bad poetry is written is that it is written as poetry instead of concept. And the reason the public doesn't understand poetry is that there is nothing to understand, and the reason most poets write it is that they think they understand. Nothing is to be understood or "regained." It is simply to be written. By someone. Sometime. And not too often. By Charles Bukowski Reason Poetry Written Understand Concept

nobody can save you butyourself.you will be put again and againinto nearly impossiblesituations.they will attempt again and againthrough subterfuge, guise andforceto make you submit, quit and/or die quietlyinside.nobody can save you butyourselfand it will be easy enough to failso very easilybut don't, don't, don't.just watch them.listen to them.do you want to be like that?a faceless, mindless, heartlessbeing?do you want to experiencedeath before death?nobody can save you butyourselfand you're worth saving.it's a war not easily wonbut if anything is worth winning thenthis is it.think about it.think about saving your self. By Charles Bukowski Save Butyourselfand Itthink Worth Mindless

The idea, of course, might be to let them know that writing needn't be hard work; the hard work is getting out of bed in the morning or at noon; the hard work is looking at people's faces in long supermarket lines; the hard work is working for somebody else who is making money using your life's hours and years. By Charles Bukowski Work Hard Idea Noon Lines

This is very important to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything ... just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That's why they're all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful. By Charles Bukowski Time Leisure Important Pace Essence

She wasn't veryinterestingbut few peopleare. By Charles Bukowski Peopleare Veryinterestingbut

Don't be like so many writers,don't be like so many thousands ofpeople who call themselves writers,don't be dull and boring andpretentious, don't be consumed with self-love.the libraries of the world haveyawned themselves tosleepover your kind.don't add to that.don't do it. By Charles Bukowski Andpretentious Libraries Add Thousands Ofpeople

I am a dolt of a man, easily made happy or even stupidly happy almost without cause and left alone I am mostly content. By Charles Bukowski Man Easily Content Happy Dolt

WHAT'S WRONG WITH ASSHOLES, BABY? YOU'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE, I'VE GOT AN ASSHOLE! YOU GO TO THE STORE AND BUY A PORTERHOUSE STEAK, THAT HAD AN ASSHOLE! ASSHOLES COVER THE EARTH! IN A WAY TREES HAVE ASSHOLES BUT YOU CAN'T FIND THEM, THEY JUST DROP THEIR LEAVES. YOUR ASSHOLE, MY ASSHOLE, THE WORLD IS FULL OF BILLIONS OF ASSHOLES. THE PRESIDENT HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE CARWASH BOY HAS AN ASSHOLE, THE JUDGE AND THE MURDERER HAVE ASSHOLES ... EVEN THE PURPLE STICKINPIN HAS AN ASSHOLE! By Charles Bukowski Asshole Assholes Baby Wrong Steak

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what I said, Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us. By Charles Bukowski Crazy Baby Night Dinner Lunch

Well, we all have our sharks, I'm sure, and there's only one way to get them off before they hack and nibble you to death - stop feeding them; they will find other bait; you fattened them the last dozen times around - now set them out to sea. By Charles Bukowski Sharks Death Stop Bait Sea

I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas. Kennedy himself was 9/10ths the way around the clock or he wouldn't have accepted such an enervating and enfeebling job meaning President of the United States of America. How can I be concerned with the murder of one man when almost all men, plus females, are taken from cribs as babies and almost immediately thrown into the masher? By Charles Bukowski Men Dead Day Assassinated America

Having nothing to struggleagainstthey have nothing to strugglefor. By Charles Bukowski Strugglefor Struggleagainstthey

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. By Charles Bukowski Tricked Awayinshame Dark Sadness Ofpeoplethey

People are worn away with striving, they hide in common habits. their concerns are herd concerns. few have the ability to stare at an old shoe for ten minutes or to think of odd things like who invented the doorknob? they become unalive because they are unable to pause undo themselves unkink unsee unlearn roll clear. listen to their untrue laughter, then walk away. By Charles Bukowski People Striving Habits Worn Hide

We waited and waited. All of us. Didn't the shrink know that waiting was one of the things that drove people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn't have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink's office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one. By Charles Bukowski Waited People Line Money Shrink

That girl enjoyed everything that bored me and everything that I enjoyed bored her. We were the perfect mates: what kept us going was the tolerable and intolerable distance between us. We kept meeting each day - and each night - with nothing solved and no chance to solve it. Perfection. By Charles Bukowski Enjoyed Bored Girl Mates Perfection

Parker had a young white boy with him-one of the neurotic tribe of the lost- and the kid's eyes were filled with wet layers of tears. One big tear in each eye. They did not drop out. It was fascinating. I had seen women sit and look at me with those same eyes before they got mad and started screaming about what a son of a bitch I was. By Charles Bukowski Parker Lost Young White Boy

When I worked on a magazine, I learned that there are many, many writers writing that can't write at all; and they keep on writing all the cliches and bromides and 1890 plots, and poems about Spring and poems about Love, and poems they think are modern because they are done in slang or staccato style, or written with all the 'i's' small. By Charles Bukowski Poems Love Writing Spring Plots

People just don't know how to write down a simple easy line. It's difficult for them; it's like trying to keep a hard-on while drowning - not many can do it. By Charles Bukowski People Line Write Simple Easy

The nights you fight bestarewhen all the weapons are pointedat you,when all the voiceshurl their insultswhile the dream is beingstrangled.the nights you fight bestarewhen the game isfixed,when the crowd screamsfor yourblood. By Charles Bukowski Fight Nights Bestarewhen Yourblood Weapons

I put on some bacon and eggs and celebrated with an extra quart of beer. By Charles Bukowski Beer Put Bacon Eggs Celebrated

my father always said, "early to bed andearly to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."it was lights out at 8 p.m. in our houseand we were up at dawn to the smell ofcoffee, frying bacon and scrambled eggs.my father followed this general routinefor a lifetime and died young, broke, and, I think, not toowise.taking note, I rejected his advice and itbecame, for me, late to bed and lateto rise.now, I'm not saying that I've conqueredthe world but I've avoidednumberless early traffic jams, bypassed somecommon pitfallsand have met some strange, wonderfulpeopleone of whom was myself - someone my fathernever knew. By Charles Bukowski Bed Father Early Broke Healthy

Once she had been a little girl, someday she would be dead, but now she was showing me her upper legs. By Charles Bukowski Girl Someday Dead Legs Showing

As shedrove me through the hills everything screamed inside ofme, and I kept saying as we drove along(to myself, of course)fucker, it will pass,everything passes,it's all a jokea joke on you By Charles Bukowski Fucker Ofme Passeverything Shedrove Hills

I feel no grief for being called somethingwhichI am not;in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a goodback rub By Charles Bukowski Fact Enthralling Rub Feel Grief

A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living your life without a man like him around. By Charles Bukowski Man Cheating Needed Make Makebelieve

What'll I do?" I asked my woman. "You just shit in the bushes." It was a more crowded camp, one of those roadside machinations, tourists abounding, so I had to put on my clothing. I wasn't entirely sober. I walked along and looked at the bushes. I selected some. I got out of my bluejeans, hung them on a bush but before I could squat the beershit began; waterfalls began rolling down my legs - wetwash of stinking beer mildewed with improperly chewed and improperly digested food. I grabbed at a bush and squatted, pissed on my feet, and eliminated a few very soft turds. My pants fell off the bush and onto the ground. I leaped up, worried about my wallet. And, of course, it had fallen out of my pants. I staggered about the brush looking for it and managed to step right into my excretia, me who had stolen the land from the Indians. By Charles Bukowski Bush Bushes Pants Began Improperly

She slammed the door andwas gone.I looked at the closed doorand at the doorknoband strangelyI didn't feelalone. By Charles Bukowski Feelalone Slammed Door Andwas Gonei

so we went up the hill. then we got into my room and I looked at them both. my pure and beautiful slim and magic little girl glorious fuck with the hair dangling down to the asshole, and next to her the tragedy of the ages: slime and horror, the machine gone wrong, frogs tortured by little boys and head-on car collisions and the spider taking in the ball-less buzzing fly and the landscape brain of Primo Carnera going down under the dull playboy guns of cocksure Maxie Baer - new heavyweight champ of America - I, I rushed at the Tragedy of the Ages - that fat slob of accumulated shit. By Charles Bukowski Hill Ages Tragedy Baer America

This birth thing. And this death thing. Each one had it's turn. We entered alone and we left alone. And most of us lived lonely and frightened and incomplete lives. An incomparable sadness descended up on me. Seeing all that life that must die. Seeing all that life that would first turn to hate, to dementia, to neuroses, to stupidity, to fear, to murder, to nothing - nothing in life and nothing in death. By Charles Bukowski Thing Life Birth Death Turn

I was 50 years old and hadn't been to bed with a woman for four years. I had no women friends. I looked at them as I passed them on the streets or wherever I saw them, but I looked at them without yearning and with a sense of futility. I masturbated regularly, but the idea of having a relationship with a woman- even on non-sexual terms-was beyond my imagination. By Charles Bukowski Years Bed Woman Looked Friends

I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores. By Charles Bukowski Loner Content Woman Eat Sleep

I just let it roll. Like a hot turd down a hill. By Charles Bukowski Roll Hill Hot Turd

Sometimes a phone made me think of an elephant turd. You know, all the shit you hear. A phone is a phone but what comes through it is another matter. By Charles Bukowski Phone Turd Made Elephant Hear

Don't ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out By Charles Bukowski Write Hurts Hot Turd Coming

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. By Charles Bukowski Writer Worst Thing Worse Number

I was like a turd that drew flies instead of like a flower that butterflies and bees desired. I wanted to live alone,I felt best being alone, cleaner,,, By Charles Bukowski Desired Cleaner Turd Drew Flies

nervestwitching in the sheets --to face the sunlight again,that's clearlytrouble.I like the city better when theneon lights are going andthe nudies dance on top of thebarto the mauling music.I'm under this sheetthinking.me nerves are hampered byhistory --the most memorable concern of mankindis the guys it takes toface the sunlight again.love begins at the meeting of twostrangers. love for the world isimpossible. I'd rather stay in bedand sleep.dizzied by the days and the streets and the yearsI pull the sheets to my neck.I turn my ass to the wall.I hate the mornings more thanany man. By Charles Bukowski Sunlight Sheets Nervestwitching Clearlytroublei Mauling

Writing is when I fly, writing is when I start fires. Writing is when I take death out of my left pocket, throw him against the wall and catch him as he bounces back. By Charles Bukowski Writing Fly Fires Start Pocket

girlsplease give yourbodies and yourlivestothe young menwhodeserve thembesidesthere isno wayI would welcometheintolerabledullsenseless hellyou would bringmeandI wish youluckin bedandoutbut notinminethankyou. By Charles Bukowski Girlsplease Notinminethankyou Give Yourbodies Yourlivestothe

God," prayed my grandmother, "purge the devil from this poor boy's body! Just look at all those sores! They make me sick, God! Look at them! It's the devil, God, dwelling in this boy's body. Purge the devil from his body, Lord!""God," said my grandmother, "why do you allow the devil to dwell inside this body's body? Don't you see how the devil is enjoying this? Look at these sores, 0 Lord, I am about to vomit just looking at them! They are red and big and full! By Charles Bukowski God Devil Lord Body Grandmother

I went for a walk on Hollywood Boulevard.I looked down and there was a large white dogwalking beside me.his pace was exactly the same as mine,we stopped at traffic signals together.a woman smiled at us.he must have walked 8 blocks with me.then I went into a grocery store andwhen I came out he was gone.or she was gone.the wonderful white dogwith a trace of yellow in its fur.the large blue eyes were gone.the grinning mouth was gone.the lolling tongue was gone.things are so easily lost.things just can't be kept forever.I got the blues.I got the blues.that dog loved andtrusted me andI let it walk away. By Charles Bukowski Gonethe Walk Large White Hollywood

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. By Charles Bukowski Cecelia Drink Giggling Talking Explaining

I was born to hustle roses down the avenue of the dead. By Charles Bukowski Dead Born Hustle Roses Avenue

There are many things that bother me. I know that I have never passed a man on the street that I liked - most of them giving off a kind of ether of disgust and stumbling and clay-eating, snot-eating grievance. I don't like the human race at all. this is my confessional, father, pass the wine. By Charles Bukowski Things Bother Clayeating Snoteating Grievance

Whiskey makes the heart beat fasterbut it sure doesn't help themind and isn't it funny how you can ache justfrom the deadly drone ofexistence? By Charles Bukowski Whiskey Ofexistence Makes Heart Beat

Here came the waitress. She had on a mini-skirt, high heels, see-through blouse with padded brassiere. Everything was too small for her: her outfit, the world, her mind. Her face was hard as steel. When she smiled it hurt. It hurt her and it hurt me. She kept smiling. That smile was so false the hairs on my arms rose. I looked away. By Charles Bukowski Waitress Hurt Miniskirt High Heels

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. By Charles Bukowski America Urinestinkingelevator Spirit Work Killing

I was simply the target of their discontent and in some real sense they blamed me for not being able to rouse them out of a failed past; what they didn't consider was that I had my troubles too - most of them caused by simply living with them. By Charles Bukowski Simply Past Target Discontent Real

I have seen dogs with more style than men,although not many dogs have style.Cats have it with abundance. By Charles Bukowski Dogs Abundance Style Menalthough Stylecats

The truth, however, was that there was very little greatness. It was almost nonexistent, invisible. But you could be sure that the worst writers had the most confidence, the least self-doubt. Anyway, writers were to be avoided, and I tried to avoid them, but it was almost impossible. They hoped for some sort of brotherhood, some kind of togetherness. None of it had anything to do with writing, none of it helped at the typewriter. By Charles Bukowski Truth Greatness Writers Invisible Nonexistent

I have consumed more drink than the firstone hundred men you will passon the streetor meet in the madhouse.I scratch my belly and dream of thealbatross.I have joined the great drunks ofthe centuries:Li Po, Toulouse-Lautrec, Crane, Faulkner.I have been selectedbut by whom? By Charles Bukowski Crane Toulouselautrec Centuries Faulkneri Consumed

Is there any wonder why the world is where it's at now? just notice the creature sitting near you in a movie house or standing ahead of you in a supermarket line. or giving a State of the Union Address. that the gods have let us go on this long this badly. By Charles Bukowski World State Union Address Badly

Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness ... By Charles Bukowski Writing Raw Sledgehammer Tenderness Humor

I thought about breakups, how difficult they were, but then usually it was only after you broke up with one woman that you met another. I had to taste women in order to really know them, to get inside of them. I could invent men in my mind because I was one, but women, for me, were almost impossible to fictionalize without first knowing them. So I explored them as best I could and I found human beings inside. The writing was only a residue. A man didn't have to have a woman in order to feel as real as he could feel, but it was good if he knew a few. Then when the affair went wrong he'd feel what it was like to be truly lonely and crazed, and thus know what he must face, finally, when his own end came. By Charles Bukowski Breakups Thought Difficult Broke Met

Your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn't help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over the river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you. By Charles Bukowski Sadder Lovers Letters Crying Bench

The strays keep arriving: now we have 5 cats and they are tenuous, flighty, con- ceited, naturally bright and awesomely beautiful. one By Charles Bukowski Flighty Con Ceited Arriving Cats

Being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right. By Charles Bukowski Felt Good

They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. By Charles Bukowski Factories Warehouses Slaughterhouses Washes Freedom

I sit heredrunk now.I am a series ofsmall victoriesand large defeatsand I am asamazedas any otherthatI have gottenfrom there toherewithout committing murderor beingmurdered;withouthaving ended up in themadhouse.as I drink aloneagain tonightmy soul despite all the pastagonythanks all the godswho were nottherefor methen. By Charles Bukowski Beingmurdered Withouthaving Methen Sit Heredrunk

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. By Charles Bukowski Man Genius Concern Fact Simply

Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter. Most people make too much of it. On these grounds a good fuck is not to be entirely scorned. But that's the result of a chance meeting too. You're damned right. Drink up. We'll have another. By Charles Bukowski Love Prejudice Form Result Good

Sometimes all we need to be able to continue aloneare the deadrattling the wallsthat close us in. By Charles Bukowski Continue Aloneare Deadrattling Wallsthat Close

Morning night and noon the traffic moves through and the murder and treachery of friends and lovers and all the people move through you. pain is the joy of knowing the unkindest truth that arrives without warning. life is being alone death is being alone. even the fools weep morning night and noon. By Charles Bukowski Moves Move Night Traffic Murder

Death is not the problem; waiting around for it is. By Charles Bukowski Death Problem Waiting

Coming in from the factory or warehouse, tired enough, there seemed little use for the night except to eat, sleep and then return to the menial job. But there was the typewriter waiting for me in those many old rooms with torn shades and worn rugs, the tub and toilet down the hall, and the feeling in the air of all the losers who had proceeded me. Sometimes the typewriter was there when the job wasn't and the food wasn't and the rent wasn't. Sometimes the typer was in hock. Sometimes there was only the park bench. But at the best of times there was the small room and the machine and the bottle. The sound of the keys, on and on, and shouts: 'HEY! KNOCK THAT OFF, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! WE'RE WORKING PEOPLE HERE AND WE'VE GOT TO GET UP IN THE MORNING!' With broom sticks knocking on the floor, pounding coming from the ceiling, I would work in a last few lines ... By Charles Bukowski Job Warehouse Tired Eat Sleep

A complete subnormal idiot. A good guy. wait until the fog came in some night and they sent him back to his lonely closed for a hand job. By Charles Bukowski Idiot Complete Subnormal Guy Wait

I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat. By Charles Bukowski Job Ads Read Man Drank

And if there is anybody out there who is crazy enough to want to become a writer, I'd say go ahead, spit in the eye of the sun, hit those keys, it's the best madness going, the centuries need help, the species cry for light and gamble and laughter. Give it to them. There are enough words for all of us. By Charles Bukowski Writer Ahead Spit Sun Hit

Every woman is different. Basically they seem to be a combination of the best and the worst - both magic and terrible. I'm glad that they exist, however. By Charles Bukowski Woman Basically Worst Terrible Exist

So many people are doomed by their ambition and their gathered intelligence, their bank account and savings and loan intelligence. If there is any secret to life, that secret is not to try. Let it come to you: women, dogs, death, and creation. By Charles Bukowski Intelligence People Doomed Ambition Gathered

I run with the hunted. By Charles Bukowski Hunted Run

I want to be with you. It's as simple, and as complicated as that. By Charles Bukowski Simple Complicated

I once lay in a white hospital for the dying and the dying self, where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die, where on my knees I prayed for LIGHT, I prayed for l*i*g*h*t, and praying crawled like a blind slug into the web where threads of wind stuck against my mind and I died of pity for Man, for myself, on a cross without nails, watching in fear as the pig belches in his sty, farts, blinks and eats. By Charles Bukowski Prayed Dying Light Man Farts

This is a world where everybody's gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody's gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that ... Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't wanna do. All the things that I don't wanna be. Places I don't wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don't understand that ... By Charles Bukowski Gotta Wanna World Things India

I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths. I get tired of battling for each space of air for the mind. that's why I stayed away from people for so long, and now that I am meeting people, I find that I must return to my cave. there are other things beside the mind: there are insects and palm trees and pepper shakers, and I'll have a pepper-shaker in my cave, so laugh. By Charles Bukowski Tired Cave Mouths Precious Intellects

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. By Charles Bukowski God Big Answered Questions Formula

December 21, 1970 well, the amateur drunks have taken over and will hold this town until Jan. 2 ... driving on the wrong side of the street, running red lights, bellowing the same songs. figs of people, twigs of people, shits of people ... MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR. Christomighty, yeah. By Charles Bukowski Jan People December Amateur Drunks

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. By Charles Bukowski Days Married Women Bed Knew

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 ... By Charles Bukowski Inferno Nice Burning Dante World

Dog is much admired by Man because he believes in the hand which feeds him. A perfect set-up. For 13 cents a day you've got a hired killer who thinks you are god. A dog can't tell a Nazi from a Republican from a Commie from a Democrat and, many times, neither can I. By Charles Bukowski Man Admired Hand Feeds Dog

Brush your teeth with gasoline.Sleep all day and climb trees at night.Be a monk and drink buckshot and beer.Hold your head under water and play the violin.Do a belly dance before pink candles.Kill your dog.Run for mayor.Live in a barrel.Break your head with a hatchet.Plant tulips in the rain.But don't write any more poetry. By Charles Bukowski Head Brush Poetry Teeth Gasolinesleep

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I'll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master ... it's when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems. By Charles Bukowski Young Caught Simply Show Poem

Now it's computers and more computersand soon everybody will have one,3-year-olds will have computersand everybody will know everythingabout everybody elselong before they meet them.nobody will want to meet anybodyelse ever againand everybody will bea recluselike I am now. By Charles Bukowski Computersand Meet Computers Everythingabout Elselong

You are thirty minutes late.""Yes.""Would you be thirty minutes late to a wedding or a funeral?""No.""Why not, pray tell?""Well, if the funeral was mine I'd have to be on time. If the wedding was mine it would be my funeral. By Charles Bukowski Yes Thirty Minutes Late Pray

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad. By Charles Bukowski Forgive Fool Runs Direction Deceive

It was wintertime. I was starving to death trying to be a writer in New York. I hadn't eaten for three or four days. So, I finally said, "I'm gonna have a big bag of popcorn." And God, I hadn't tasted food for so long, it was so good. Each kernel, you know, each one was like a steak! I chewed and it would just drop into my poor stomach. My stomach would say, "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" I was in heaven, just walking along, and two guys happened by, and one said to the other, "Jesus Christ!" The other one said, "What was it?" "Did you see that guy eating popcorn? God, it was awful!" And so I couldn't enjoy the rest of the popcorn. I thought; what do you mean, "it was awful?" I'm in heaven here. I guess I was kinda dirty. They can always tell a fucked-up guy. By Charles Bukowski Popcorn Wintertime York God Awful

Everything was a trap: women, drugs, whiskey, wine, scotch, beer - even beer - cigars, and cigarettes. Traps: Work or no work. Traps: Artistry or no artistry; everything sucked you into some spiderweb. I disdained the use of the needle for the same reason that I disdained some so-called beautiful women - the price was far beyond the measure of the worth. I didn't want to hustle that hard. By Charles Bukowski Beer Drugs Whiskey Wine Scotch

They have no idea that it can be done by a bus driver, a field hand, or a fry cook. They have no idea where it comes from. It comes from pain, damnation and impossibility. The blow to the soul of the gut. It comes from getting burned and seared and slugged. It comes from ... new and awful places and the same old places. By Charles Bukowski Idea Driver Hand Cook Bus

I didn't like anybody in that school. I think they knew that. I think that's why they disliked me. I didn't like the way they walked or looked or talked, but I didn't like my mother or father either. I still had the feeling of being surrounded by white empty space. There was always a slight nausea in my stomach. By Charles Bukowski School Knew Talked Disliked Space

There were no judgments to be made, yet out of necessity one had to select. Beyond good and evil was all right in theory, but to go on living one had to select: some were kinder than others, some were simply more interested in you, and sometimes the outwardly beautiful and inwardly cold were necessary. The kinder ones fucked better, really, and after you were around them a while they seemed beautiful because they were. By Charles Bukowski Select Made Judgments Necessity Kinder

I got lost somehow, began staring up her legs. I was always a leg man. It was the first thing I saw when I was born. But then I was trying to get out. Ever since I have been working in the other direction and with pretty lousy luck. By Charles Bukowski Began Lost Staring Legs Leg

and when love came to us twice and lied to us twice we decided to never love again that was fair fair to us and fair to love itself. we ask for no mercy or no miracles; we are strong enough to live and to die and to kill flies, attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack, live on luck and skill, get alone, get alone often, and if you can't sleep alone be careful of the words you speak in your sleep; and ask for no mercy no miracles; and don't forget: time is meant to be wasted, love failsand death is useless. By Charles Bukowski Fair Love Miracles Lied Decided

A yet women -good women- frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price. By Charles Bukowski Women Wanted Frightened Soul Mine

shot in the eyeshot in the brainshot in the assshot like a flower in the danceamazing how death wins hands downamazing how much credence is given to idiot forms oflifeamazing how laughter has been drowned outamazing how viciousness is such a constantI must soon declare my own war on their warI must hold to my last piece of groundI must protect the small space I have made that hasallowed me lifemy life not their deathmy death not their deaththis place, this time, nowI vow to the sunthat I will laugh the good laugh once againin the perfect place of meforever.their death not my life. By Charles Bukowski Death Life Place Laugh Shot

I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm bringing the dead back to life ... By Charles Bukowski Grave Thought Life Fucking Bringing

Another hot summer night as I sit here and play at being a writer again. and the worst thing of course is that the words will never truly break through for any of us. some nights I have taken the sheet out of the typer and held it over the cigarette lighter, flicked it and waited for the result. By Charles Bukowski Lighter Flicked Result Hot Summer

Why don't we go back out there and tell them what happened?because nothing happened except that everybody has been driven insane and stupid by life. in this society there are only two things that count: don't be caught without money and don't get caught high on any kind of high.(Night Streets of Madness) By Charles Bukowski Happened Life Back Driven Insane

as long as there arehuman beings aboutthere is never going to beany peacefor any individualupon this earth (oranywhere elsethey mightescape to).all you can dois maybe grabten lucky minuteshereor maybe an hourthere.somethingis working toward youright now, andI mean youand nobody butyou. By Charles Bukowski Earth Oranywhere Andi Butyou Long

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar. By Charles Bukowski History Bar Wasted Bunch Drunks

Love is a horse with a broken leg trying to stand while 45,000 people watch. By Charles Bukowski Love People Watch Horse Broken

Somebody at one of these places asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You "don't try". That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like it's looks, you make a pet out of it. By Charles Bukowski Wait Places Asked Cadillacs Create

I like to prowl ordinary places.I feel sorry for us all or glad for us allcaught alive togetherand awkward in that way.there's nothing better than the jokeof usthe seriousness of usthe dullness of us By Charles Bukowski Usthe Prowl Ordinary Placesi Feel

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. By Charles Bukowski Strangers Morals Meet Part Gymnasium

my gardenin the sun and in the rainand in the day and in the nightpain is a flowerpain is flowersblooming all the time. By Charles Bukowski Time Gardenin Sun Rainand Day

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 upon 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. By Charles Bukowski Dark Worry Kill Wait Poetry

Downers some people grind away making their unhappiness the ultimate factor of their existence until finally they are just automatically unhappy, their suspicious upset snarling selves grinding on and at and for and through their only relief being to meet another unhappy person or to create one. By Charles Bukowski Unhappy Downers People Grind Making

Yes?' he asked, looking at me over the sheet.'I'm a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.''Oh, a writer, eh?''Yes.''Are you sure?''No, I'm not.''What do you write?''Short stories mostly. And I'm halfway through a novel.''A novel, eh?''Yes.''What's the name of it?''"The Leaky Faucet of My Doom."''Oh, I like that. What's it about?''Everything.''Everything? You mean, for instance, it's about cancer?''Yes.''How about my wife?''She's in there too. By Charles Bukowski Yes Short Writer Doom Everything

What will you do?""Oh, hell, I'll write a novel about writing the screenplay and making the movie.""What are you going to call it?""Hollywood.""Hollywood?""Yes ... By Charles Bukowski Hollywood Hollywood Hell Movie Write

It felt good not to be part of that sort of thing. 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. By Charles Bukowski Thing Felt Good Part Sort

December 25, 1963 Christmas night and they've battered their heads together until they are silly and they've smiled themselves silly and vomited on the floor, 98% of them amateur drinkers, amateur Christians, amateur human beings By Charles Bukowski Christmas Christians December Silly Amateur

What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman. By Charles Bukowski Reaction Woman Man

Often it takes a lifetime to learn how to react to certain critical situations.it's worth waiting for the arrival of maturityand confidence.try it sometime and see how delightful it is to feel powerful andalive. By Charles Bukowski Critical Worth Andalive Lifetime Learn

Living was easy - all you had to do was let go. And have a little money. Let the other men fight the wars, let the other men go to jail. By Charles Bukowski Living Easy Men Money Wars

Well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. [ ... ]. I want to know about things, what makes them work! By Charles Bukowski War Women Travel Marriage Children

No matter how little a man has he will find that he will always settle for less. By Charles Bukowski Matter Man Find Settle

Marvin bongo drums and a piano and some grass By Charles Bukowski Marvin Grass Bongo Drums Piano

Daddy,' my mother asked, 'aren't we going to run out of gas?'No there's plenty of god-damned gas.'Where are we going?'I'm going to get some god-damed oranges! By Charles Bukowski Daddy Asked Gas Gas Oranges

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. By Charles Bukowski Understand World Ordinary Madness Soul

It's colder than hell (yes) butthe blankets are thin,and the pulled-down shadesare as full of holes as love is. By Charles Bukowski Hell Butthe Colder Blankets Thinand

I didn't know who tobelievebutone thing I doknow: when a man islivingmany claim relationshipsthat are hardlysoand after he dies, well,then it's everybody'sparty. By Charles Bukowski Doknow Dies Wellthen Everybodysparty Tobelievebutone

The writing's easy, it's the living that is sometimes difficult. By Charles Bukowski Easy Difficult Writing Living

There was something about funerals. It made you see things better. A funeral a day and I'd be rich. By Charles Bukowski Rich Made Things Funerals Funeral

There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die. By Charles Bukowski Mourn Death Lives Ugly Flower

As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a trap. If you are in one and you don't realize it, then you're finished. By Charles Bukowski Caught Torn Live Trap Realize

Baby, in a couple of minutes I'm going to rip off your god damned panties and show you some turkey neck you'll remember all the way to the graveside. I have a vast and curved penis, like a sickle, and many a gutted pussy has gasped come upon my callous and roach-smeared rug. First let me finish this drink. By Charles Bukowski Baby Graveside Couple Minutes Rip

New affairs were exciting but theywere also hard work. The first kiss, the first fuck had some drama. People were interesting at first. Then later, slowly but surely, all the flaws and madness would manifest themselves. I would become less and less to them; they would mean less and less to me. By Charles Bukowski Work Affairs Exciting Theywere Hard

Human relationships simply aren't durable. I think back to the women in my life. they seem non-existent. By Charles Bukowski Human Durable Relationships Simply Life

So I drank every night after work, alone, up at my place and I had enough left for a day at the track on Saturday, and life was simple and without too much pain. Maybe without too much reason, but getting away from pain was reasonable enough. By Charles Bukowski Saturday Work Pain Drank Night

Forgive me, I guess I am off in the head, but I mean, except for a quickie piece of ass it wouldn't matter to me if all the people in the world died. Yes, I know it's not nice. But I'd be as contended as a snail; it was, after all, the people who had made me unhappy. By Charles Bukowski Forgive Head Died People Guess

You get so alone at times that it just makes sense. By Charles Bukowski Sense Times Makes

Sweet music It beats love because there aren't any wounds: in the morning she turns on the radio, Brahms or Ives or Stravinsky or Mozart. She boils the eggs counting the seconds out loud: 56, 57, 58 ... she peels the eggs, brings them to me in bed. After breakfast it's the same chair and listen to the classical music. She's on her first glass of scotch and her third cigarette. I tell her I must go to the racetrack. She's been here about 2 nights and 2 days. "When will I see you again?" I ask. She suggests that might be up to me. I nod and Mozart plays. By Charles Bukowski Brahms Ives Stravinsky Sweet Wounds

Why do we embroider everything we saywith special emphasis when all we really need to dois simply say whatneeds to he said?Of coursethe fact isthat there is very little that needsto be said. By Charles Bukowski Embroider Saywith Special Emphasis Dois

It is a fine sunny day and great matters loom across the horizon of history. Carthage in my rearview mirror, I blend into Time. By Charles Bukowski History Time Fine Sunny Day

All the poets wanted to get disability insurance it was better than immortality. By Charles Bukowski Immortality Poets Wanted Disability Insurance

Most days gonowherebut the avoidanceof pain anddissolution arelovely. By Charles Bukowski Arelovely Days Gonowherebut Avoidanceof Pain

Human relationships are strange. I mean, you are with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stops. By Charles Bukowski Human Strange Relationships Eating Loving

And remember the old dogswho fought so well:Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.If you think they didn't go crazyin tiny roomsjust like you're doing nowwithout womenwithout foodwithout hopethen you're not ready.drink more beer.there's time.and if there's notthat's all righttoo. By Charles Bukowski Hemingway Celine Dostoevsky Hamsunif Timeand

Women: I liked the colors of their clothing; the way they walked; the cruelty in some faces; now and then the almost pure beauty in another face, totally and enchantingly female. They had it over us: they planned much better and were better organized. While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women, were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding - whether to accept us, discard us, exchange us, kill us or whether simply to leave us. In the end it hardly mattered; no matter what they did, we ended up lonely and insane. By Charles Bukowski Faces Face Women Clothing Walked

There's a small balcony here, the door is open and I can see the lights ofthe cars on the Harbor Freeway south, they never stop, that roll of lights, on and on.All those people. What are they doing? What are they thinking? We're allgoing to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. By Charles Bukowski Harbor Freeway Lights South Stop

We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing. By Charles Bukowski Die Circus Trivialities Make Love

Lydia screamed. The car began to swerve all over the street. "YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU!" She crossed the double yellow line at high speed, directly into oncoming traffic. Horns sounded and cars scattered. We drove on against the flow of traffic, cars approaching us peeling off to the left and right. Then just as abruptly Lydia swerved back across the double line into the lane we had just vacated. Where are the police? I thought. Why is it that when Lydia does something the police become nonexistent? By Charles Bukowski Lydia Screamed Traffic Double Cars

We are dying birds we are sinking ships - the world rocks down against us and we throw out our arms and we throw out our legs like the death kiss of the centipede: but they kindly snap our backs and call our poison politics. By Charles Bukowski Throw Ships Centipede Politics Dying

Most people are not ready for death, theirs or anybody elses. By Charles Bukowski Death People Ready

I am with the rootsof flowersentwined, entombedsending up my passionate blossomsas a flight of rocketsand argument;wine churls my throat,above mefeet walk upon my brain, monkies fall from the skyclutching photographs of the planets,but i seek only musicand the leisureof my pain By Charles Bukowski Flowersentwined Entombedsending Argument Wine Brain

Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were and love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. One simply became tired of holding back love and let it go because it needed some place to go. Then, usually, there was trouble. By Charles Bukowski Women Beautiful Public Belonged Love

I lapsed into my pathetic cut-off period. Often with humans, both good and bad, my senses simply shut off, they get tired, I give up. I am polite. I nod. I pretend to understand because I don't want anybody to be hurt. That is the one weakness that has lead me into the most trouble. Trying to be kind to others I often get my soul shredded into a kind of spiritual pasta.No matter. My brain shuts off. I listen. I respond. And they are too dumb to know that I am not there. By Charles Bukowski Period Lapsed Pathetic Cutoff Kind

Christmas poem to a man in jailhello Bill Abbott:I appreciate your passing around my books injail there, my poems and stories.if I can lighten the load for some of those guys withmy books, fine.but literature, you know, is difficult for theaverage man to assimilate (and for the unaverage man too);I don't like most poetry, for example,so I write mine the way I like to read it. By Charles Bukowski Abbott Man Bill Books Christmas

And our few good times will be rare because we have the critical senseand are not easy to fool with laughter By Charles Bukowski Laughter Good Times Rare Critical

Great art is horseshit, buy tacos. By Charles Bukowski Great Horseshit Buy Tacos Art

If you're going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind. By Charles Bukowski Wives Relatives Girlfriends Jobs Mind

It's better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it. By Charles Bukowski Thing Dull Style Dangerous

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. By Charles Bukowski Believing Agraveyard Theorieslike Clichesshot Hellall

I can't blame her. butwonder why she's here with me? where are the other guys? how can you be lucky? having someone theothers have abandoned? By Charles Bukowski Blame Butwonder Guys Lucky Abandoned

There is a quality about women who choosemen sparingly;it appears in their walkin their eyesin their laughter and in theirgentle hearts. By Charles Bukowski Sparingly Hearts Quality Women Choosemen

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.. By Charles Bukowski Days Guess Lesbianism Rampant Bunk

Manny, what are you doing working in auto parts?" "Resting. By Charles Bukowski Manny Resting Parts Working Auto

I call 'em complaining machines. Things are never right with a guy to them. And man, when you throw that hysteria in there ... forget it. I gotta get out, get in the car, and go. Anywhere. Get a cup of coffee somewhere. Anywhere. Anything but another woman. I guess they're just built different, right? By Charles Bukowski Call Machines Complaining Things Man

Unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it By Charles Bukowski Gut Sun Inside Burning

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. By Charles Bukowski Ofyour Soul Rocketunless Woulddrive Madness

All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was alway controlling who got a chance and who didn't. By Charles Bukowski Chance Guy Needed Alway Controlling

There is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the averagehuman being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against itand the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace By Charles Bukowski Preach Treachery Hatred Peace Violence

A. Huxley died at 69, much too early for such a fierce talent, and I read all his works but actually Point Counter Point did help a bit in carrying me through the factories and the drunk tanks and the unsavory ladies. that book along with Hamsun's Hunger they helped a bit. great books are the ones we need. By Charles Bukowski Point Bit Huxley Counter Hamsun

When Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"I know what hemeantI know what hewanted:to be completely alive every momentin spite of the inevitable.we can't cheat death but we can make itwork so hardthat when it does takeusit will have known a victory just asperfect asours By Charles Bukowski Whitman Wrote Electric Hewanted Asours

I was a janitor for a while but I can never imagine a man calling himself a Floor Engineer when he has to walk into the woman's crapper and clean up what they leave behind. I couldn't get a hard-on for a year after working in that place. what they leave behind. and on the floor. and in that little compartment behind the seat. or alongside of it. or wherever it was. By Charles Bukowski Floor Engineer Leave Janitor Imagine

I like women who haven't lived with too many men.I don't expect virginity but I simply prefer womenwho haven't been rubbed raw by experience.There is a quality about women who choosemen sparingly;it appears in their walkin their eyesin their laughter and in theirgentle hearts.Women who have had too many menseem to choose the next oneout of revenge rather than withfeeling.When you play the field selfishly everythingworks against you:one can't insist on love ordemand affection.You're finally left with whateveryou have been willing to givewhich often is:nothing. By Charles Bukowski Women Sparingly Ordemand Finally Lived

I'm one of those who doesn't think there is much differencebetween an atomic scientist and a man who cleans the crappersexcept for the luck of the draw - parents with enough money to point you toward a moregenerous death.of course, some come through brilliantly, butthere are thousands, millions of others, bottled up, keptfrom even the most minute chance to realize their potential. By Charles Bukowski Draw Parents Brilliantly Butthere Thousands

They had been afraid of the man with the beautifil eyes. And we were afraid then that all troughout our lives things like that would happen, that nobody wanted anybody to be strong and beautiful like that, that others will never allow it, and that many people will have to die. By Charles Bukowski Eyes Afraid Man Beautifil Happen

Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the deathin a cesspool. By Charles Bukowski Human Relationships Work Zing Interest

There is nothing that teaches you more than regroupingafter failure and moving on. Yet most people are stricken withfear. They fear failure so much that they fail. They are tooconditioned, too used to being told what to do. It begins withthe family, runs through school and goes into the businessworld. By Charles Bukowski Teaches Regroupingafter Moving Failure Withfear

the trouble with the famous is that they must be replaced and they can never quite be replaced, and that gives us this unique sadness. By Charles Bukowski Replaced Sadness Trouble Famous Unique

Something else is hurting you - that's why you need pot or whiskey, or screaming musicturned so fucking loudyou can't think By Charles Bukowski Whiskey Hurting Pot Screaming Musicturned

I loved youlike a man loves a woman he never touches, onlywrites to, keeps little photographs of. I would haveloved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling acigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,but that didn't happen. your letters got sadder.your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, alllovers betray. By Charles Bukowski Touches Onlywrites Loved Youlike Man

Ihave a face like a washrag. I singlove songs and carry steel.I would rather die than cry. I can'tstand hounds can't live without them.I hang my head against the whiterefrigerator and want to scream likethe last weeping of life forever butI am bigger than the mountains. By Charles Bukowski Ihave Washrag Face Cry Mountains

We went up the Harbor freeway north and then we cut onto the San Diego freeway north. I hated the San Diego freeway. It always jammed. Then I noticed a slight rain beginning to fall."That's it," I said, "it's beginning to rain." All the cars were going to stop. California drivers didn't know how to drive in the rain. By Charles Bukowski San Diego Harbor North Freeway

have to be on the cross and bleeding in order to have soul. They want you half mad, dribbling down your shirt front. I've had enough of the cross, my tank is full of that. If I can stay off the cross, I still have plenty to run on. Too much. Let them get on the cross, I'll congratulate them. But pain doesn't create writing, a writer does. By Charles Bukowski Cross Soul Bleeding Order Mad

Lighting new cigarettes,pouring moredrinks. It has been a beautiful fight. Stillis. By Charles Bukowski Lighting Moredrinks Stillis Cigarettespouring Fight

The hangover was brutal but he didn't mind. It told him he had been somewhere else, someplace good. By Charles Bukowski Mind Hangover Brutal Someplace Good

I don't think I have written a poem when I was completely sober. But I have written a few good ones or a few bad ones under the hammer of a black hangover when I didn't know whether another drink or a blade would be the best thing. By Charles Bukowski Written Sober Poem Completely Thing

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. By Charles Bukowski Hell Judge Create Overtaught Goodness

I used to live on one candy bar a day - it cost a nickel. I always remember the candy bar was called Payday. That was my payday. And that candy bar tasted so good, at night I would take one bite, and it was so beautiful. By Charles Bukowski Candy Bar Payday Day Nickel

My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the 'light' and never mentioned the other, then as an artist, I would be a liar. By Charles Bukowski Days Years Darknesses Life Lights

Dear child, I only did to youwhat the sparrowdid to you; I am old when it isfashionable to be young; I cry when it isfashionable to laugh.I hated you when it would have taken less courage to love. By Charles Bukowski Isfashionable Dear Child Young Love

GRATE ART IS HORSESHIT, BUY TACOS. By Charles Bukowski Grate Horseshit Buy Tacos Art

We do not abandon ship. I say, as corny as it may sound, through the strength and spirit and fire and dare and gamble of a few men in a few ways we can save the carcass of humanity from drowning. No light goes out until it goes out. Let's fight as men, not rats. Period. No further addition. By Charles Bukowski Ship Abandon Men Sound Drowning

The difference between being subtle and abstract is the difference between knowing and saying it in a gentler way and not knowing and saying it in a way that will let you off the hook. To be abstract with the word is all right if you use it like paint and seek the pure word, but it is difficult, in the language, to have near purity without near meaning. By Charles Bukowski Difference Knowing Hook Abstract Subtle

I guess she felt as I: that the weakness was not Government but Man, one at a time, that men were never as strong as their ideas and that ideas were governments turned into men;and so it began on a couch with a spilled martiniand it ended in the bedroom: desire, revolution,nonsense ended, and the shades rattled in the wind,rattled like sabres, cracked like cannon,and 30 dogs, 20 men on 20 horses chased one foxacross the fields under the sun By Charles Bukowski Men Man Ideas Ended Desire

I'm tired of waiting to die. Let's go out. By Charles Bukowski Die Tired Waiting

But no, there weren't any maybes. Wealth meant victory and victory was the only reality. By Charles Bukowski Victory Wealth Reality Meant

I have lost my rhythm.I can't sleep.I can't eat.I have been robbed ofmy filth. By Charles Bukowski Filth Lost Rhythmi Sleepi Eati

Your best men aredrunks and your worst men arelocking themup,your best men are killers andyour worst men areselling thembullets By Charles Bukowski Men Worst Thembullets Aredrunks Arelocking

I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself. By Charles Bukowski Misanthrope Misogynist Good Drink Felt

I went into the bends. I got drunker and stayed drunker than a shit skunk in Purgatory. I even had the butcher knife against my throat one night in the kitchen and then I thought, easy, old boy, your little girl might want you to take her to the zoo. Ice cream bars, chimpanzees, tigers, green and red birds, and the sun coming down on top of her head, the sun coming down and crawling into the hairs of your arms, easy, old boy. By Charles Bukowski Easy Bends Boy Drunker Purgatory

I am bitter sometimes but the taste has often been sweet. By Charles Bukowski Sweet Bitter Taste

Alone with everybody the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and them men drink too much and nobody finds the one but they keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh. there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate. nobody ever finds the one. the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the madhouses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills. By Charles Bukowski Flesh Fill Covers Bone Soul

Stop insisting on clearing your head - clear your fucking heart instead. By Charles Bukowski Stop Head Clear Insisting Clearing

Jimmy waited and Clare walked over. She put her face close to mine. She spoke softly so Jimmy wouldn't hear. "Listen, Honey, any time you really want to graduate, I can arrange to give you your diploma." "Thanks, Clare, I might be seeing you." "I'll rip your balls off, Henry!" "I don't doubt it, Clare." She went back to Jimmy and they walked away down the street. By Charles Bukowski Jimmy Clare Waited Listen Honey

Homosexuals are delicate and bad poetry is delicate and [Allen] Ginsberg turned the tables by making homosexual poetry strong poetry, almost manly poetry; but in the long run, the homo will remain the homo and not the poet. By Charles Bukowski Allen Poetry Ginsberg Delicate Homo

there wasn't a stoveand we put cans of beansin hot water in the sinkto heat themupand we read the Sunday paperson Mondayafter digging them out of thetrash cansbut somehow we managedmoney for wineand therentand the money came offthe streetsout of hock shopsout of nowhereand all that matteredwas the nextbottleand we drank and sangandfoughtwere in and outof drunktankscar crasheshospitalswe barricaded ourselvesagainst thepoliceand the other roomershatedusand the desk clerkof the hotelfearedusand it went onandonand it was one of themost wonderful timesof mylife.-- Bumming with Jane By Charles Bukowski Bumming Jane Sunday Mondayafter Mylife

Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great. By Charles Bukowski Turgenev Funny Truth Fellow Make

The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid to get in; they had paid for drinks; they intended to get something and if you didn't give it to them they'd run you right into the ocean. By Charles Bukowski Sound Place Trembled False Paid

The balloon pops and I walk across a kitchen on a rainy day in February to check on eggs and bread and wine and sanity to check on glue to paste nice pictures on these walls. By Charles Bukowski Check February Walls Balloon Pops

To do things, simple things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day ... was a man born just to endure those things and then die? By Charles Bukowski Day Christmas July Labor Mother

The empty, the angry, the lonely, the tricked, we are all museums of fear. By Charles Bukowski Empty Angry Lonely Tricked Fear

The apartment was built at the edge of a high cliff so that when you looked out the back window it seemed as if you were twelve floors up instead of four. It was very much like living on the edge of the world - a last resting place before the final big drop. By Charles Bukowski Edge Apartment Built High Cliff

I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often. By Charles Bukowski Felt Crying Sad Sickness Sick

Dying in a a war never stopped wars from happening. By Charles Bukowski Dying Happening Stopped War Wars

Jim, did your father really blow his brains out because of your mother?" "Yeah. He was on the telephone. He told her he had a gun. He said, 'If you don't come back to me I'm going to kill myself. Will you come back to me?' And my mother said, 'No.' There was a shot and that was that." "What did your mother do?" "She hung up. By Charles Bukowski Jim Yeah Mother Father Blow

There are no good wars or bad wars. The only thing bad about a war is to lose it. All wars have been fought for a so-called good Cause on both sides. But only the victor's Cause becomes history's Noble Cause. It's not a matter of who is right or who is wrong, it's a matter of who has the best generals and the better army! By Charles Bukowski Wars Bad Good Matter Noble

I don't know how he does it but every woman he meets is crazy. he will get rid of one crazy woman but he never gets any relief - another crazy moves right in with him. it's only after they move in and begin acting more than strange that they admit to him that they've done madhouse time or that their families have a long history of mental illness. By Charles Bukowski Crazy Woman Meets Relief Rid

One doesn't even think ofthe liverand if the liverdoesn't think ofus, that'sfine. By Charles Bukowski Thatsfine Ofus Ofthe Liverand Liverdoes

She is no longerthe beautiful womanshe was. she sendsphotos of herselfsitting upon a rockby the oceanalone and damned.I could have hadher once. I wonderif she thinks Icould havesaved her? By Charles Bukowski Longerthe Beautiful Womanshe Icould Sendsphotos

Beware 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 for they are nothing alonebeware the average man the average womanbeware their love, their love is averageseeks average By Charles Bukowski Average Quick Love Beware Praisefor

Where had they learned to converse and to dance? I couldn't converse or dance. Everybody knew something I didn't know. The girls looked so good, the boys so handsome. I would be too terrified to even look at one of those girls, let alone be close to one. To look into her eyes or dance with her would be beyond me.And yet I know that what I saw wasn't as simple and good as it appeared. There was a price to be paid for it all, a general falsity, that could be easily believed, and could be the first step down a dead-end street. By Charles Bukowski Dance Converse Learned Girls Good

We only asked for leopards to guard our thinning dreams. By Charles Bukowski Dreams Asked Leopards Guard Thinning

I felt terrible. The poor had a right to fuck their way through their bad dreams. Sex and drink, and maybe love, was all they had. By Charles Bukowski Terrible Felt Dreams Sex Drink

2 p.m. beernothing mattersbut flopping on a mattresswith cheap dreams and a beeras the leaves die and the horses dieand the landladies stare in the halls;brisk the music of pulled shades,a last man's cavein an eternity of swarmand explosion;nothing but the dripping sink,the empty bottle,euphoria,youth fenced in,stabbed and shaven,taught wordspropped upto die. By Charles Bukowski Die Beernothing Halls Brisk Explosion

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. By Charles Bukowski Dresser Superior Hated Stores Seller

She says Thomas drank himself to death because he felt his talent was waning. Bullshit. Thomas drank himself to death for the same reason that I do: he loved his drink, it lifted him where he belonged, where we all belong, where we all should be if the stream of people weren't such asses and didn't believe in homes and new cars and all that junk. By Charles Bukowski Waning Thomas Drank Death Felt

What a weary time those years were to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability. By Charles Bukowski Ability Weary Time Years Desire

I could stay here, I thought, make money at the track while she nurses me over the bad moments, rubs oils on my body, cooks for me, talks to me, goes to bed with me. By Charles Bukowski Thought Make Moments Rubs Body

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. By Charles Bukowski Reality Danger Flow Compassion Concept

You boys can keep your virgins give me hot old women in high heels with asses that forgot to get old. By Charles Bukowski Boys Virgins Give Hot Women

When I was a boy I used to dream of becomingthe village idiot.I used to lie in bed and imagine myself thehappy idiotable to get food easily ... and easy sympathy,a planned confusion of not too much love or effort.some would claim that I have succeeded. By Charles Bukowski Easily Succeeded Boy Dream Becomingthe

And you go on toward your ocean, the cigar biting your lips the way love used to. By Charles Bukowski Ocean Cigar Biting Lips Love

(You can shoot a barracuda between the eyes and it won't go to hell because it doesn't know where or what hell is ... ) By Charles Bukowski Hell Shoot Barracuda Eyes

Love iz a big fat turkey and every day iz thanksgiving By Charles Bukowski Love Thanksgiving Big Fat Turkey

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. By Charles Bukowski Profit Hours Lives Dull Rote

I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it. By Charles Bukowski Overhead Heard Airplane Passing Wished

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. By Charles Bukowski Created God High Lying Bed

There are worse thingsthan being alonebut it often takesdecades to realize thisand most often when you doit's too lateand there's nothing worsethan too late By Charles Bukowski Late Worse Thingsthan Alonebut Takesdecades

In the cupboard sits my bottlelike a dwarf waiting to scratch out my prayers.I drink and cough like some idiot at a symphony,sunlight and maddened birds are everywhere,the phone rings gamboling its soundagainst the odds of the crooked sea;I drink deeply and evenly now,I drink to paradiseand deathand the lie of love. By Charles Bukowski Drink Sea Love Cupboard Sits

The street to my left was backed up with traffic and I watched the people waiting patiently in the cars. There was almost always a man and a women, staring straight ahead, not talking. It was, finally, for everyone, a matter of waiting. You waited and you waited- for the hospital, the doctor, the plumber, the madhouse, the jail, papa death himself. First the signal red, then the signal was green. The citizens of the world ate food and watched t.v. and worried about their jobs or lack of the same, while they waited. By Charles Bukowski Cars Waited Waiting Street Left

What good are you? What can you do? It has cost me a thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you!Suppose I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?" "Catch butterflies By Charles Bukowski Good Suppose Catch Feed Clothe

Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse? By Charles Bukowski Thought Worse Matter Choosing Bad

I read my books at night, like that, under the quilt with the overheated reading lamp. Reading all those good lines while suffocating. It was magic. By Charles Bukowski Night Lamp Reading Read Books

I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax. By Charles Bukowski Orleans Living Days Day Write

It's a lonely time, she sings, and you're not mine and it makes me feel so bad, this thing of being me ... By Charles Bukowski Time Sings Bad Lonely Mine

I went into the men's room and stared in the mirror at my face in disgust. I looked like I knew something, but it was a lie, I was a fake and there's nothing worse in the world than when a man suddenly realizes and admits to himself that he's a phoney, after spending all his time up to then trying to convince himself that he wasn't. I stared at all the sinks and pipes and bowls and I felt like them, worse than them: I'd rather be them. By Charles Bukowski Disgust Men Room Mirror Face

Nothing in the air butclouds. nothing in the air butrain. each man's life too short tofind meaning andall the books almost awaste.I sit and listen to themsingingI sit and listen tothem. By Charles Bukowski Butclouds Air Sit Listen Butrain

She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something. By Charles Bukowski Eyes Slightly Insane Wild Carried

We areBorn like thisInto thisInto these carefully mad warsInto the sight of broken factory windows of emptinessInto bars where people no longer speak to each otherInto fist fights that end as shootings and knifingsBorn into thisInto hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to dieInto lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guiltyInto a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closedInto a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes By Charles Bukowski Cheaper Thisinto Heroes Areborn Carefully

Two bulls fighting for the cow. And a bony one at that. But in America the loser oftentimes got the cow. Mother instinct? Better wallet? Longer dick? God knows what. ... By Charles Bukowski Cow Bulls Fighting America Bony

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. By Charles Bukowski Streets Night Sleeping Lot Good

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. By Charles Bukowski Cunt Legs Beautiful Time Imagine

sometimes it's hard to knowwhat todo. By Charles Bukowski Todo Hard Knowwhat

I think that the world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just cats and rain, rain and cats, very nice, good night. By Charles Bukowski Cats Full Rain Nice Good

A man can be old and a foolmany area man can be young and wisefew are By Charles Bukowski Man Foolmany Area Young Wisefew

So, that's what they wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That's what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for me. By Charles Bukowski Lies Wanted Beautiful Needed People

to ignore life at the proper time takes a special wisdom: like a Happy New Year to you all. By Charles Bukowski Happy Year Wisdom Ignore Life

Me working and you laying around. All the neighbors think I am supporting you." "Hell, I worked and you laid around." "That's different. You're a man, I'm a woman." "Oh, I didn't know that. I thought you bitches were always screaming for equal rights? By Charles Bukowski Working Laying Hell Neighbors Supporting

I killed four flies while waiting. Damn, death was everywhere. Man, bird, beast, reptile, rodent, insect, fish didn't have a chance. The fix was in. I didn't know what to do about it. I got depressed. You know, I see a boy at the supermarket, he's packing my groceries, then I see him sticking himself into his own grave along with the toilet paper, the beer and the chicken breasts. By Charles Bukowski Waiting Killed Flies Damn Death

In that drunken place you would like to hand your heart to her and say touch it but then give it back. By Charles Bukowski Back Drunken Place Hand Heart

Some men are crazy," I said, moving toward the door."What do wou mean?""I mean, some men are in love with their wives. By Charles Bukowski Men Crazy Moving Door Wives

Oh, I don't mean you're handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes - they're beautiful. They're wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire. By Charles Bukowski Handsome People Crazy Kind Eyes

The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair. But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun. By Charles Bukowski Distance Dresses Hair Girls Looked

I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love,and how you gave me everything you hadand how I offered you what was left of me. By Charles Bukowski Kisses Remember Lips Raw Loveand

BILLS! BILLS! BILLS!' she screamed. 'IS THAT ALL YOU CAN BRING ME? THESE BILLS?''Yes, mam, that's all I can bring you.' I turned and walked on.It wasn't my fault that they used telephones and gas and light and bought all their things on credit. Yet when I brought them their bills they screamed at me - as if I had asked them to have a phone installed, or a $350 t.v. set sent over with no money down. By Charles Bukowski Bills Bring Screamed Mam Credit

A woman is a full time job. You have to choose your profession. By Charles Bukowski Job Woman Full Time Profession

The Laughing Heart your life is your life don't let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can't beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you. By Charles Bukowski Laughing Heart Life Light Submission

The world had somehow gone too far, and spontaneous kindness could never be so easy. By Charles Bukowski Easy World Spontaneous Kindness

Soon I'll finish this 5th of Puerto Rican rum. in the morning I'll vomit and shower, drive back in, have a sandwich by 1 p.m., be back in my room by 2, stretched on the bed, waiting for the phone to ring, not answering, my holiday is an evasion, mt reasoning is not. By Charles Bukowski Puerto Rican Rum Finish Back

We know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure. By Charles Bukowski God Dead Told Listening

Everything was eternally dreary, dismal, damned. Even the weather was insolent and bitchy. By Charles Bukowski Dismal Damned Dreary Eternally Bitchy

An early taste of death is not necessarily a bad thing. By Charles Bukowski Thing Early Taste Death Necessarily

It's the same for most of us but one of the best things I learned was to stay out of the bars and also to try to stay off the street. I fail sometimes to stay off the streets but not too often. the finest place on earth to drink is in your own place and alone. you probably know all this. all right. By Charles Bukowski Stay Things Learned Bars Place

Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art. By Charles Bukowski Thing Style Dangerous Dull Answer

I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. By Charles Bukowski Bars Factories Hid Hide

I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again. By Charles Bukowski Worst Bars Hoping Killed Drunk

Maybe I'd be a bank robber. Some god-damned thing. Something with flare, fire. You only had one shot. Why be a window washer? By Charles Bukowski Robber Bank Fire Thing Flare

Then after all this reverse the procedure. Have a good love affair. And the thing you might learn is that nobody knows anything - not the State, nor the mice the garden hose or the North Star. And if you ever catch me teaching a creative writing class and you read this back to me I'll give you a straight A right up the pickle barrel. By Charles Bukowski Procedure Reverse State Star North

Sometimes you've got to kill 4 or 5thousand men before you somehowget to believe that the sparrowis immortal, money is piss andthat you have been wastingyour time. By Charles Bukowski Kill Men Immortal Money Time

I am a series of small victories and large defeats. By Charles Bukowski Defeats Series Small Victories Large

Maybe a damned good night's sleep will bring me back to a gentle sanity.But at the moment, I look about this room and, like myself, it's all in disarray: things fallen out of place, cluttered, jumbled, lost, knocked over and I can't put it straight, don'twant to.Perhaps living through these petty days will get us ready for the dangerous ones. By Charles Bukowski Cluttered Jumbled Lost Moment Disarray

I don't carry notebooks and I don't consciously store ideas. I try not to think that I am a writer and I am pretty good at doing that. I don't like writers, but then I don't like insurance salesmen either. By Charles Bukowski Ideas Carry Notebooks Consciously Store

Many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman. By Charles Bukowski Woman Good Man Put Bridge

I can never drive my car over a bridge without thinking of suicide.I can never look at a lake or an ocean without thinking of suicide. By Charles Bukowski Thinking Suicide Drive Car Bridge

The writing of somemenis like a vast bridgethat carries youoverthe many thingsthat claw and tear.The Wine of Forever By Charles Bukowski Forever Wine Writing Somemenis Vast

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. By Charles Bukowski Asked Writer Makes Man Simple

Don't undress my love you might find a mannequin; don't undress the mannequin you might find my love. By Charles Bukowski Undress Love Find Mannequin

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. By Charles Bukowski World Love Glad Happy Lose

The dog approached again, cautiously. I found the bologna sandwich, ripped off a chunk, wiped the cheap watery mustard off, then placed it on the sidewalk.The dog walked up to the bit of sandwich, put his nose to it, sniffed, then turned and walked off. This time he didn't look back. He accelerated down the street.No wonder I had been depressed all my life. I wasn't getting proper nourishment. By Charles Bukowski Cautiously Dog Sandwich Approached Walked

god, love is more strange than numerals more strange than grass on fire more strange than the dead body of a child drowned in the bottom of a tub, we know so little, we know so much, we don't know enough. By Charles Bukowski Strange God Love Tub Numerals

I was an Agnostic. Agnostics didn't have much to argue about. By Charles Bukowski Agnostic Agnostics Argue

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. By Charles Bukowski Wine Sat Back Poured Glass

Sometimes I feel as if we are all trapped in a movie. We know our lines, where to walk, how to act, only there is no camera. Yet, we can't break out of the movie. And it's a bad one. By Charles Bukowski Movie Feel Trapped Lines Walk

I believe that to be the world's greatest livingwriterthere must be somethingterribly wrong with you.I don't even want to be the world's greatestdead writer.just being dead would be fairenough. By Charles Bukowski World Fairenough Greatest Livingwriterthere Somethingterribly

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, ... By Charles Bukowski Stretched Bed Personal Involved Asked

I will remember the hours of kisses our lips raw with love and how you offered me your cunt your soul your insides and how I answered offering you whatever was left of me, By Charles Bukowski Remember Hours Kisses Lips Raw

If the rest of the world could see you today their laughter would bring the sun to its knees and even the flowers would leap from the ground like bulldogs and chase you away to where you belong wherever that is, and who cares where it is as long as it's somewhere away from here. By Charles Bukowski Rest World Today Laughter Bring

There is hardly anything as beautiful as a woman in a long dress not even the sunrise not even the geese flying south in the long V formation in the bright freshness of early morning. By Charles Bukowski Long Morning Beautiful Woman Dress

Don't fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice. By Charles Bukowski Demons Fight Lessons Teach Sit

THE ALIENSfrom The Last Night Of The Earth Poemsyou may not believe itbut there are peoplewho go through life withvery littlefriction of distress.they dress well, sleep well.they are contented withtheir familylife.they are undisturbedand often feelvery good.and when they dieit is an easy death, usually in theirsleep.you may not believeitbut such people doexist.but i am not one ofthem.oh no, I am not one of them,I am not even nearto beingone ofthem.but theyare thereand I amhere. By Charles Bukowski Night Earth Poemsyou Sleep Death

All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this fix. You want to test me. Suppose I test You? Suppose I say that You are not there? You've given me a supreme test with my parents and with these boils. I think that I have passed Your test. I am tougher than You. If You will come down here right now, I will spit into Your face, if You have a face. And do You shit? The priest never answered that question. He told us not to doubt. Doubt what? I think that You have been picking on me too much so I am asking You to come down here so I can put You to the test! I waited. Nothing. I waited for God. I waited and waited. I believe I slept. By Charles Bukowski Test Waited God Suppose Face

I was alone with myself. And disgusting as I was it was better than being with somebody else, anybody else, all of them out there doing their pitiful little tricks and handsprings. By Charles Bukowski Handsprings Disgusting Pitiful Tricks

I have two rules. One is, never trust a man who smokes a pipe. The other is, never trust a man with shiny shoes. By Charles Bukowski Rules Trust Man Pipe Shoes

No Help of thatThere is a place in the heart that will never be filled a space. And even during the best moments and the greatest times we will know it We will know it more that ever. There is a place in the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that place. By Charles Bukowski Place Heart Space Filled Thatthere

Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss. By Charles Bukowski Love Overload Handle Psychic Piss

But it seems that the most beautiful women always go for the most horrible shits, the most obvious fakes. By Charles Bukowski Shits Fakes Beautiful Women Horrible

The next thing I knew, I had a young girl from Texas on my lap. I won't go into details of how I met her. Anyway, there it was. She was 23. I was 36. By Charles Bukowski Texas Knew Lap Thing Young

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity. By Charles Bukowski Time Young Depressed Life Suicide

I felt I had to win. It seemed very important. I didn't know why it was important and I kept thinking, why do I think this is so important? And another part of me answered, just because it is. By Charles Bukowski Win Important Felt Thinking Answered

She shoots up in the neck," she told me. I told her to stick it into my ass and she tried and said, "oh oh," and I said, "what the hell's the matter?" she said, "nothing, this is New York style," and she jammed it in again and said, "oh shit." I took it and put it into my arm, I got part of it. "I don't know why people fuck with the stuff, there's not that much to it. I think they're all losers and they want to lose real bad. there's no other way, it's like they can't get where they're going or want to go and there's no other way. this has got to be it. she shoots up in the neck. By Charles Bukowski Told Neck Shoots York Matter

I was laying in bed one night and I thought 'I'll just quit - to hell with it.' And another little voice inside me said 'Don't quit - save that tiny little ember of spark.' And never give them that spark because as long as you have that spark, you can start the greatest fire again. By Charles Bukowski Quit Thought Spark Laying Bed

I was still tough but it wasn't the same. I had to withdraw. I watched people from afar, it was like a stage play. Only they were on stage and I was an audience of one. By Charles Bukowski Tough Stage Withdraw Afar Play

Bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well. By Charles Bukowski Early Bad Father Marriage Luck

The years have gone by quickly. Death sits in the seat next to me. We make a lovely couple. By Charles Bukowski