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Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 15

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When a writer is swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with the turds.

When a writer is swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with the turds.

Charles Bukowski
Rivers, Fame, Turds

I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me.

Charles Bukowski
School, Play, Benches
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.23, Canongate Books

beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world

Charles Bukowski
Art, Love Is, Men
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.149, Canongate Books

I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.

Charles Bukowski
Marriage, Single, Wedding

The hangover was brutal but he didn't mind. It told him he had been somewhere else, someplace good.

Charles Bukowski
Hangover, Somewhere Else, Mind

Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same.

Charles Bukowski
Drinking, Beer, Emotional
Charles Bukowski (2003). “Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993”

I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.

Charles Bukowski
Loneliness, Pride, Men
"Factotum". Book by Charles Bukowski, Ch. 17, 1975.

Don't wait for the good woman. She doesn't exist.

Charles Bukowski
Women, Waiting, Good Woman
"Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life". Book by Howard Sounes, 1998.

For each Joan of Arc there is a Hitler perched at the other end of the teeter-totter.

Charles Bukowski
Ends, Arcs
"Factotum". Book by Charles Bukowski, Ch. 56, 1975.

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.

Charles Bukowski
Men, Drunk, Bars
Charles Bukowski (2013). “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”, p.48, City Lights Books

The night kept coming on in and there was nothing I could do.

Charles Bukowski
Night
Charles Bukowski (2013). “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”, p.4, City Lights Books

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.

Charles Bukowski
Writing, People, Trying
Charles Bukowski (1978). “Women”

I take much pleasure in being alone but there is also a strange warm grace in not being alone.

Charles Bukowski
Grace, Strange, Pleasure

I am a dolt of a man, easily made happy or even stupidly happy almost without cause and left alone I am mostly content.

Charles Bukowski
Men, Causes, Made

The years have gone by quickly. Death sits in the seat next to me. We make a lovely couple.

Charles Bukowski
Couple, Years, Lovely
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Come On In!: New Poems”, p.131, Canongate Books

Sometimes I get too exhausted to even feel bad

Charles Bukowski
Exhausted, Sometimes, Feels
Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.346, Zondervan

A yet women -good women- frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price.

Charles Bukowski
Soul, Good Woman, Demand

Knowledge is knowing as little as possible.

Charles Bukowski
Knowledge, Knowing Who You Are, Knowing
Charles Bukowski (2013). “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”, p.138, City Lights Books

The ladies usually go for the biggest damn fool they can find; that is why the human race stands where it does today: we have bred the clever and lasting Casanovas, all hollow inside, like the chocolate Easter bunnies we foster upon our poor children.

Charles Bukowski
Easter, Children, Clever
Charles Bukowski (2013). “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”, p.50, City Lights Books

Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.

Charles Bukowski
Ass, Streets, Madhouses
Charles Bukowski (2009). “Hollywood”, p.89, Canongate Books

If you can't write the next line, well, you're dead. The past doesn't matter.

Charles Bukowski
Writing, Past, Lines

... to die on a kitchen floor at 7 o'clock in the morning while other people are frying eggs is not so rough unless it happens to you.

Charles Bukowski
Death, Morning, Eggs
Charles Bukowski (2009). “Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame”, p.23, Harper Collins

I will put on my shoes and shirt and get out of here - it'll be better for all of us.

Charles Bukowski
Shoes, Shirts
Charles Bukowski (1971). “A Bukowski Sampler”

Alcohol is probably one of the greatest things to arrive upon the earth - alongside of me.

Charles Bukowski
Drinking, Alcohol, Earth
Charles Bukowski (2003). “Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993”

Love is a horse with a broken leg trying to stand while 45,000 people watch.

Charles Bukowski
Horse, Love Is, People

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