Quotes from Charles Bukowski

How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

I needed coffee, two coffees, a bite to eat.

La razza umana esagera tutto: i propri eroi, i propri nemici, la propria importanza. Lo sapevate che i gatti dormono venti ore su ventiquattro? Non c'è da stupirsi che abbiano un aspetto migliore del mio.

Just like some guys can't taxi or pimp or hustle dope, most guys, and gals too, can't be postal clerks.

the history of a tough motherfucker he

If you're going to try, go all the way.

?utao sam, jer kad mrziš, ne možeš da moliš...

Beware of those quick to praise, for they need praise in return.

not writing is not good but trying to write when you can't is worse.

What's wrong is that I am a GIANT HUNK OF SHIT!

one night like this beats life, the overflow takes care of death

WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.

Get a man who works for nothing and you get a man who just likes to hang around. I

I walked around the library looking for books. I pulled them off the shelves, one by one. But they were all tricks. They were very dull. There were pages and pages of words that didn't say anything. Or if they did say something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you already were too tired to have it matter at all. I tried book after book. Surely, out of all those books, there was one.

I'm not a guru. I wish you wouldn't pose these things at me, man. Ask me about women or something.

Todos vamos a morir, todos nosotros, ¡menudo circo! Debería bastar con eso para que nos amáramos unos a otros, pero no es así.

what bargains we have made we have kept and as the dogs of the hours close in nothing can be taken from us but our lives.

Bad writers tend to have self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt.

Being a common laborer all my life at poor and underpaid jobs, I had worked with more black men, known more black men, drank with more black men, fought with more black men than any theoretical liberal with books jammed between the ears.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

anyhow, then I went on to city college where the only molesting I could see going on was what they did to your mind.

I can hear cars on the freeway, it's like a distant sea sludged with people while over my other shoulder, far over on 7th street near Western is the hospital, that house of agony— sheets and bedpans and arms and heads and expirations; everything is so sweetly awful, so continuously and sweetly awful: the art of consummation: life eating life…

It felt good not to be part of that sort of thing. I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective.

the world was molested with billions of people who had nothing to do with their time except murder it and murder you.