Charles Bukowski Charles Bukowski (Quotes)



Charles Bukowski quotes
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
― Charles Bukowski
   
   humor
             

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“Do you hate people?
I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly
             

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“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered.
But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big
answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and
discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a
dictum. I am my own god. 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.”
― Charles Bukowski
   atheism , religion
             

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“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a
drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if
something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing
happens you drink to make something happen.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women
   alcohol
             

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“My ambition is handicapped by laziness”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum
             

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“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.
This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your
mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean
freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It
could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are
a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And,
you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be
better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go
all the way. There is no other feeling     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.”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum
   fire , flame , isolation , laughter , loss , sacrifice
             

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“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should
make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened
by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski
             

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“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not
going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times
you've felt that way.”
― Charles Bukowski
   humour
         

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“You have to die a few times before you can really
live.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look     Flowers at Last
         

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“there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a
hard thing in a simple way.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've
been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt
that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering
me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words,
loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've
always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at
a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel
loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone."
I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and
give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't
help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you
going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out
there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let
them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to
rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in
factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been
lonely. I     myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's
drink more wine!”
― Charles Bukowski
   loneliness
         

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“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a
soul left to lose”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“what matters most is how well you walk through the fire”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring
damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“I loved you     a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to,
keeps little photographs of.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell
   love
         

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“there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell
         
   

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“There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.”
― Charles Bukowski
   humor
         

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“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office
         

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“Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism
of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of
your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the
feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to
return to life and begin all over the next day. It's     killing
yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or
fifteen thousand lives now.”
― Charles Bukowski
   bukowski , drinking
         

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“Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“I don't hate people. I just feel better when they aren't around.”
― Charles Bukowski
   humour
         

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“A love     that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never
entirely recover.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look     Flowers at Last
         

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“you boys can keep your virgins
give me hot old women in high heels
with asses that forgot to get old. ”
― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell
   women
         

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“Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there
was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group
encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel,
withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting,
composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling,
drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha,
Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New
York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find
things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women
   humans , philosophy , society
         

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“Some lose all mind and become soul,insane.
some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual.
some lose both and become accepted”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically
because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness
         

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“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a
place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one
usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at
   :       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?”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum
         

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“my beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the
world.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“We are
Born     this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the
slow movement of the hands of a clock”
― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell
   loneliness
         

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“there is always one woman to save you from another and as that woman
saves you she makes ready to destroy”
― Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog from Hell
   women
         

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“I felt     crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad
sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it.
I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it
pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness
         

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“The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

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“People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly
they lacked the ability to feel or love.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women
         

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“I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with
the color of forgotten love.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
         

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“Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire.... Pain
arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It's real. And to
anybody watching, you look foolish.     you've suddenly become an
idiot. There's no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands
how you feel, and knows how to help.”
― Charles Bukowski
         

Bukowski