Quotes About Writing

I'm just an alcoholic who became a writer so that I would be able to stay in bed until noon.

Charles Bukowski

hell is a closed door when you're starving for your goddamned art but sometimes you feel at least like having a peek through the keyhole. young or old, good or bad, I don't think anything dies as slow and as hard as a writer.

I guess what I meant is that you are better off doing nothing than doing something badly. But the problem is that bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt. [1989 interview in the literary journal "Arete". In response to the question Your poem 'friendly advice to a lot of young men' says that one is better off living in a barrel than he is writing poetry. Would you give this same advice today?]

I don't write out of knowledge. When the phone rings I too would like to hear words that might ease some of this. That's why my number's listed.

the best writers have said very little and the worst, far too much.

play the piano she says it's not good for you not to write.

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

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

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

poetry it takes a lot of desperation dissatisfaction and disillusion to write a few good poems. it's not for everybody either to write it or even to read it.

The writing arrives when it wants to. There is nothing you can do about it. You can't squeeze more writing out of the living than is there. Any attempt to do so creates a panic in the soul, diffuses and jars the line.

that's just what happens when the words carry you and you forget the human side. Writers are all bastards, trying to knock off each other or some editor, or they, like I, throw dirt on the dying. I hate my guts.

The Baron went on doing magic things. Half the notebook was filled with Baron Von Himmlen. It made me feel good to write about the Baron. A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating living your life without a man like him around.

The big moment came. I sat the typewriter down on the desk and I put a piece of paper in there and I hit the keys. The typewriter still worked. And there was plenty of room for an ashtray, the radio and the bottle. Don't let anybody tell you different. Life begins at 65.

writing. It is my drug. It is my woman, my wine, my god. My luck.

the best poems it seems to me are written out of an ultimate need. and once the poem is written, the only need after that is to write another.

Only assholes talk about writing

Eu costumava rir mais, eu costumava fazer tudo mais, exceto escrever. Hoje, escrevo e escrevo e escrevo, quanto mais velho fico, mais escrevo, dançando com a morte.

Ho ricevuto un sacco di lettere di persone che dicono che i miei libri gli hanno salvato il culo. Ma io non li ho scritti per quello, li ho scritti per salvare il mio, di culo.

OkazaÅ'o siÄ™, ?e korzenie ludzkiej duszy tkwiÄ… w ?oÅ'Ä…dku. Po befsztyku z polÄ™dwicy i póÅ'litrze whiskey czÅ'owiek pisze o niebo lepiej ni? po jakimÅ› sÅ'odkim paskudztwie za piÄ…taka. Mit o gÅ'odujÄ…cym artyÅ›cie okazaÅ' siÄ™ bzdurÄ….

Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious. Then

Will you read some of your poems?" "Christ, no." "Why not?" "I just want to drink." "You talk about drinking a lot in your books. Do you think drinking has helped your writing?" "No. I'm just an alcoholic who became a writer so that I would be able to stay in bed until noon." I

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity. ? Charles Bukowski, Women (: Ecco; Reprint edition, February 27, 2007) Originally published 1978.