Quotes from Charles Bukowski

Now we are citizens of nothing. the sun itself knows the sad truth of how we surrendered our lives and deaths to simple ritual….how we said no, no, no, no to the most beautiful YES ever uttered - life itself.

I didn't like the eight hour job. I didn't even like the four hour job, even though I couldn't get one.

Beware Those Who Seek Constant Crowds; They Are Nothing Alone

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.

the best of you I like more than you think.

Stanley was right. I never hit another home run. I struck out most of the time. But they always remembered that home run and while they still hated me, it was a better kind of hatred, like they weren't quite sure why. Football

Kimsenin ?st?rab? olmas? gerekenden fazla de?ildir.

once again I hear of somebody who is going to settle down and do their work, painting or writing or whatever, as soon as they get a better light installed, orassoonastheymovetoanew city, or as soon as they come back from the trip they have been planning, or as soon as . . . it's simple: they just don't want to do it, or they can't do it, otherwise they'd feel a burning itch from hell they could not ignore and "soon" would turn quickly into "now.

my god, they will say, all Chinaski writes about are cats! my god, they used to say, all Chinaski writes about are whores! the complainers will complain and keep buying my books: they love the way I irritate them.

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.

ants, ants crawl my drunken arms as our schoolboys scream for Willie Mays instead of Bach, ants crawl my drunken arms through the drink I reach for surfboards and sinks, for sunflowers and the typewriter falls like a heart-attack from the table or a dead Sunday bull, and the ants crawl into my mouth and down my throat

anyhow, I'm now using the knife the reader sent me to clean my fingernails. better this than ripping it deep into somebody's guts. I prefer to do that with the poem.

one day the goldfish died, all five of them, they floated on the water, on their sides, their eyes still open, and when my father got home he threw them to the cat there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother smiled

The human race exaggerates everything: its heroes, its enemies, its importance.

if there is light it will find you. — Charles Bukowski, from "the harder you try," The People Look Like Flowers . (Ecco; First Edition edition(March 27, 2007)

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." –Paraphrased from Charles Bukowski's poem "Roll the Dice

I was gifted, am gifted. Sometimes I looked at my hands and realized that I could have been a great pianist or something. But what have my hands done? Scratched my balls, written checks, tied shoes, pushed toilet levers, etc. I have wasted my hands. And my mind.

Old ladies standing in halls, up and down the streets, asking the same question as if they were one person with one voice: "Mailman, you got any mail for me?" And you felt like screaming, "Lady, how the hell do I know who you are or I am or anybody is?

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.

But Billy, how about me? What about what's inside of me?

I'm on the cross. be kind and they put you on the cross. that son of a bitch on his couch talking about Mahler and Kant and cunt and revolution, not really knowing about any of them.

But she project vitality - you knew that she was there. I could feel vibrations running between us.

Now let's each have a good tall drink to celebrate!

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