Quotes from Charles Bukowski

Some men are crazy, I said, moving toward the door. What do wou mean? I mean, some men are in love with their wives.

I need a good woman. I need a good woman more than I need this typewriter, more than I need my automobile, more than I need Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I can taste her in the air, I can feel her at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built for her feet to walk upon, I can see pillows for her head, I can feel my waiting laughter, I can see her petting a cat, I can see her sleeping, I can see her slippers on the floor.

a bird no one wants. he's mine. my bird of pain. he doesn't sing. that bird swaying on the bough.

I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more foolish.

But you know, my former life as a bibliophile, it possibly kept me from murdering somebody, myself included. it kept me from being an industrialist. it allowed me to endure some women that most men would never be able to live with. it gave me space, a pause. it helped me to write this.

do it, do it, do it. do it. all the way all the way.

You're the most unknown famous man I ever met

I walked up the driveway. The cats were sprawled about, pooped. In my next life I want to be a cat. To sleep 20 hours a day and wait to be fed. To sit around licking my ass. Humans are too miserable and angry and single-minded.

She made the same money in ten minutes that I had made in a day with some hours thrown in. Monetarily speaking, it seemed sure as shit you were better off having a pussy than a cock.

Then came the Christmas party. That was December 24th. There were to be drinks, food, music, dancing. 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.

Writing is its own intoxication.

Early evening traffic was beginning to clog the avenue with cars. The sun slanted down behind him. Harry glanced at the drivers of the cars. They seemed unhappy. The world was unhappy. People were in the dark. People were terrified and disappointed. People were caught in traps. People were defensive and frantic. They felt as if their lives were being wasted. And they were right.

If you have the ability to love, love yourself first, but always be aware of the possibility of total defeat whether the reason for that defeat seems right or wrong.

being alone you decided, was a magnificent miracle. nothing else made any sense at all. —escape

if you don't have much soul left and you know it, you still got soul.

Something had happened. The bath towels knew it, the bathtub and the toilet knew it. My father turned and walked out the door. He knew it. It was my last beating. From him.

of one hundred movies there's one that is fair, one that's good and ninety eight that are very bad. most movies start badly and steadily get worse

you were the only one who understood the futility of the arrangement of life; all the others were only displeased with trivial segments, carped nonsensically about nonsense; Jane, you were killed by knowing too much.

YOU DON'T SMELL FIRE, I yelled. YOU SMELL SMOKE.

I disliked them all immediately, sitting around acting clever and superior. They nullified each other. The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of writers. Like flies on the same turd.

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can. (Writing, New Poems Book Three)

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.

cunt and Kant and a happy home

Trouble and pain were what kept a man alive. Or trying to avoid trouble and pain. It was a full time job.