Quotes from Charles Bukowski

well, death says, as he walks by, I'm going to get you anyhow no matter what you've been: writer, cab-driver, pimp, butcher, sky-diver, I'm going to get you…

it's when you're on the row that you notice that everything is owned and that there are locks on everything.

Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you'll feel better because they know that everything is just as it is. There's nothing to get excited about. They just know. They're saviours.

Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love

Crear arte significa estar terriblemente solo para siempre.

I stared at the phone. Deathly damned thing. But you needed it to call 911. You never knew.

Scrivere poesie non è difficile. Difficile è viverle.

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.

The bums were better dressed, younger, but just as listless. They sat around on the window ledges, hunched forward, getting warm in the sun and drinking the free coffee that W.F.I. offered. There was no cream and sugar, but it was free.

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.

tu figlio di puttana, disse lei, sto cercando di costruire una relazione che abbia senso. non puoi costruirla con un martello, disse lui

I began counting each fool that passed me. I got up to 50 in two-and-one-half-minutes, then stepped into the next bar.

sometimes a man must fight so hard for life that he doesn't have time to live it.

9:09 in the morning, the taste of liquor and cigarettes, no police, no lovers, walking the streets, this poem, this city, closing its doors, barricaded, almost empty, mournful without tears, aging without pity, the hardrock mountains, the ocean like a lavender flame, a moon destitute of greatness, a small music from broken windows… a poem is a city, a poem is a nation, a poem is the world…

If you went to a shrink, he just read to you from the book but when you looked at him, you knew he didn't know what you were talking about. You were just talking to a contented person. When what you really needed when you were going crazy was another crazy who read exactly what you were saying, but not from the book, from the street.

Life is Tuesday afternoon in a cage.

225 days under grass and you know more than I. they have long taken your blood, you are a dry stick in a basket. is this how it works? in this room the hours of love still make shadows. when you left you took almost everything. I kneel in the nights before tigers that will not let me be. what you were will not happen again. the tigers have found me and I do not care.

What? You mean you'd dare drink right after getting out of jail for intoxication?" "That's when you need a drink the most.

And the writers keep writing and the artists keep painting but it doesn't mean too much.

I view his furry storage tanks – what can a man think about while looking at a cat's nuts? Certainly not the sunken navies of great sea battles.

I'm one of those who doesn't think there is much difference between an atomic scientist and a man who cleans the crappers except for the luck of the draw - parents with enough money to point you toward a more generous death. of course, some come through brilliantly, but there are thousands, millions of others, bottled up, kept from even the most minute chance to realize their potential.

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.

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.

The best people are the ones you never meet.