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Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 11

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little sun little moon little dog and a little to eat and a little to love and a little to live for in a little room filled with little mice who gnaw and dance and run while I sleep waiting for a little death in the

little sun little moon little dog and a little to eat and a little to love and a little to live for in a little room filled with little mice who gnaw and dance and run while I sleep waiting for a little death in the middle of a little morning in a little city in a little state my little mother dead my little father dead in a little cemetery somewhere. I have only a little time to tell you this: watch out for little death when he comes running but like all the billions of little deaths it will finally mean nothing and everything: all your little tears burning like the dove, wasted.

Charles Bukowski
Mother, Running, Dog
Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.308, Zondervan

No matter how little a man has he will find that he will always settle for less.

Charles Bukowski
Men, Novelists, Littles
Charles Bukowski (2013). “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”, p.28, City Lights Publishers

There are no good wars or bad wars. The only thing bad about a war is to lose it. All wars have been fought for a so-called good Cause on both sides. But only the victor's Cause becomes history's Noble Cause. It's not a matter of who is right or who is wrong, it's a matter of who has the best generals and the better army!

Charles Bukowski
War, Army, Matter
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.263, Canongate Books

It's better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it.

Charles Bukowski
Style, Dull, Dangerous

I am a series of small victories and large defeats.

Charles Bukowski
Victory, Defeat, Small Victories

I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a graveyard.

Charles Bukowski
Sad, Stupid, Believe

I hated you when it would have taken less courage to love.

Charles Bukowski
Taken, Hated, Courage To Love
Charles Bukowski (2009). “The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses”, p.20, Harper Collins

Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: There sat the 18-pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.

Charles Bukowski
Thanksgiving, Suicide, Children

It’s the order of things: each one gets a taste of honey then the knife.

Charles Bukowski
Order, Knives, Honey
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.440, Canongate Books

I always started a job with the feeling that I'd soon quit or be fired, and this gave ma a relaxex manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power.

Charles Bukowski
Jobs, Feelings, Secret
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.9, Canongate Books

My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.

Charles Bukowski
Crazy, War, Wine

What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.

Charles Bukowski
Sex, Women, Want

American women drove hard bargains and the ended up looking the worst for it. The few natural American women left were mostly in Texas and Louisiana.

Charles Bukowski
Texas, Louisiana, Natural

I would say that Mickey Mouse has a greater influence on the American public than Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Rabelais, Shostakovitch, Lenin, and/or Van Gogh. Which says 'What?' about the American Public. Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.

Charles Bukowski
Reality, California, Southern
Charles Bukowski (2003). “Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993”

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.

Charles Bukowski
Poetry Is, Happens

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there.

Charles Bukowski
Heart, Cigarette Smoke, Clerks
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.494, Canongate Books

Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.

Charles Bukowski
People, Dies, Left
Charles Bukowski (2009). “The Captain is Out to Lunch”, p.13, Harper Collins

stay with the beer. beer is continuous blood. a continuous lover.

Charles Bukowski
Drinking, Beer, Blood

To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.

Charles Bukowski
Real, Moving, Writing

they simply never understand, do they, that sometimes solitude is one of the most beautiful things on earth?

Charles Bukowski
Beautiful, Solitude, Earth
Charles Bukowski (2013). “New Poems Book Three”, p.65, Random House

The worst men have the best jobs the best men have the worst jobs or are unemployed or locked in madhouses.

Charles Bukowski
Jobs, Men, Best Job
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.373, Canongate Books

dont undress my love you might find a mannequin dont undress the mannequin you might find love. shes long ago forgotten me. hes trying on a new hat and looks more the coquette then ever. she is a child and a mannequin and death. i can't hate that. she didnt do anything unusual. I only wanted her to.

Charles Bukowski
Children, Hate, Love You

We are hardly ever as strong as that which we create.

Charles Bukowski
Strong

Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.

Charles Bukowski
Funny, Spiritual, Men
1967 Tales of Ordinary Madness,'Too Sensitive'.

They were beautiful nothings

Charles Bukowski
Beautiful
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.236, Canongate Books

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