Quotes from Charles Bukowski

unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.

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?

I was the only one without. you could hit bottom and then find another bottom. balls.

Endurance is more important than truth.

Perché sfotti così la tua bellezza? le chiesi.Perché non ci vivi insieme, e via? Perché la gente pensa ch'è tutto quel che ho. La bellezza non è niente, la bellezza non dura. Non lo sai quanto sei fortunato, tu, a essere brutto, che se a qualcuno gli piaci, così sai che è per qualche cosa d'altro.

He even got up once in English class and read an essay called 'The Value of Friendship' and while he was reading it he kept glancing at me. It was a stupid essay, soft and standard, but the class applauded when he finished, and I thought, well, that's what people think and what can you do about it? I wrote a counter-essay called, 'The Value of No Friendship At All.' The teacher didn't let me read it to the class. She gave me a D.

The hope is a touch of graceful humor, no matter what's occurring. The ability to laugh, the ability to see the ridiculous, the ability not to tense up too much, when things become impossible, just to face them anyhow. A touch of humor. Let's say laughter through the flame. Or, guts. Courage… Humor, guts, and courage, no matter the odds. We can always face that.

I emit, I hiss a rather tired and gentle word like shit, then tear this page from the machine. it's your.

Hell was what you made it.

they thought that writing had something to do with the politics of the thing. they were simply not crazy enough in the head to sit down to a typer and let the words bang out. they didn't want to write they wanted to succeed at writing.

meat is cut as roses are cut men die as dogs die love dies like dogs die, he said.

The young will never know how recklessly we went from bed to bed, from body to body, from night to night. it all, at times, became a bore.

I suppose there's always something out there that we want to torture ourselves with.

There was something about funerals. It made you see things better. A funeral a day and I'd be rich.

I waited. Nothing. I waited for God. I waited and waited. I believe I slept.

But that's the trouble with a drunk: if he gets excited he drinks too much, if he gets bored he drinks too much, if he has good luck he drinks too much, if he has bad luck he drinks too much, and so on.

death arrived on schedule on a Sunday afternoon, and, as always, it was easier than we thought it would be.

Of course, you leave afterwards or get very drunk which is the same thing.

Love is for real men.

It's possible to love another human being if you don't know them too well.

Mëso të mos e shkatërrosh me fjalë atë çfarë ke ndërtuar me heshtje.

Learn that there will be hours, days and months ahead of feeling absolutely terrible and nothing can change that; neither new girlfriends, health professionals, changes of diet, dope, humility, or God.

Nëse një ditë më dëgjoni të flasë për dashuri, e yje... ju lutem, më vrisni!

Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it.