Quotes from Charles Bukowski

the worst thing, he told me, is bitterness, people end up so bitter.

I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.

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. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn't let me.

I don't remember going to bed, but in the morning, there I was.

New Year's Eve always terrifies me.

be it peace or happiness let it enfold you

Trapped don't undress my love you might find a mannequin: don't undress the mannequin you might find my love. she's long ago forgotten me. she's trying on a new hat and looks more the coquette than ever. she is a child and a mannequin and death. I can't hate that. she didn't do anything unusual. I only wanted her to.

Each person is only given so many evenings and each wasted evening is a gross violation against the natural course of your only life.

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.

life itself is not the miracle. that pain should be so constant, that's the miracle -

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.

If you're going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.

I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.

Hey baby, when I write, I'm the hero of my shit.

Bad taste makes more millionaires than good taste.

Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly – all else is desperation.

In the morning it was morning and I was still alive. Maybe I'll write a novel, I thought. And then I did.

I didn't like parties.I didn't know how to dance and people frightened me, especially people at parties. They attempted to be sexy and gay and witty and although they hoped they were good at it, they weren 't. They were bad at it. Their trying so hard only made it worse.

I was only kidding about the hundred, she says. oh, I say, what will it cost me? she lights her cigarette with my lighter and looks at me through the flame: her eyes tell me. look, I say, I don't think I can ever pay that price again.

Fiction is an improvement on life

Look, let me put it this way: with me, you're number one and there isn't even a number two.

That's what friendship is, sharing the prejudice of experience.

there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate.

Music is much like fucking, but some composers can't climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent.