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Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 17

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we know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure.

we know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure.

Charles Bukowski
Listening, Knowing God, Knows

A spark can set a whole forest on fire. Just a spark. Save it.

Charles Bukowski
Fire, Sparks, Forests

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

Charles Bukowski
Reality, Humanity

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. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.

Charles Bukowski
Odds, People, Perspective
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Women”, Ecco

We do not abandon ship. I say, as corny as it may sound, through the strength and spirit and fire and dare and gamble of a few men in a few ways we can save the carcass of humanity from drowning. No light goes out until it goes out. Let's fight as men, not rats. Period. No further addition.

Charles Bukowski
Fighting, Men, Fire
Source: bukowski.net

A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.

Charles Bukowski
Serious Illness, Serious, Illness

What good are you? What can you do? It has cost me a thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you! Suppose I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?" "Catch butterflies

Charles Bukowski
Butterfly, Dollars, Cost
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.221, Canongate Books

Some people have written that my writing has helped them go on. It has helped me too. The writing, the roses, the 9 cats.

Charles Bukowski
Cat, Writing, Rose

There is nothing that teaches you more than regrouping after failure and moving on.

Charles Bukowski
Moving, Teach, Regrouping

The street to my left was backed up with traffic and I watched the people waiting patiently in the cars. There was almost always a man and a women, staring straight ahead, not talking. It was, finally, for everyone, a matter of waiting. You waited and you waited- for the hospital, the doctor, the plumber, the madhouse, the jail, papa death himself. First the signal red, then the signal was green. The citizens of the world ate food and watched t.v. and worried about their jobs or lack of the same, while they waited.

Charles Bukowski
Jobs, Men, Doctors

I feel no grief for being called something which I am not; in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a good back rub

Charles Bukowski
Grief, Facts, Feels

I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future.

Charles Bukowski
Running, Practice, Skid Row
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.307, Canongate Books

people see so many movies that when they finally see one not so bad as the others, they think it's great. an Academy Award means that you don't stink quite as much as your cousin.

Charles Bukowski
Cousin, Mean, Thinking

my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile! why don't you ever smile?" and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw

Charles Bukowski
Mother, Two, Three
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.15, Canongate Books

That's your response to everything: drink?" "No, that's my response to nothing.

Charles Bukowski
Drink, Response

That's what friendship means: sharing the prejudice of experience.

Charles Bukowski
Prejudice
"Notes of a Dirty Old Man".

I knew exactly what I was doing: I was doing nothing. because I knew there was nothing to do.

Charles Bukowski
Doing Nothing

beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average

Charles Bukowski
Love Is, Men, Average

She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn't have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.

Charles Bukowski
Beautiful, Way, Desperate

I got lost somehow, began staring up her legs. I was always a leg man. It was the first thing I saw when I was born. But then I was trying to get out. Ever since I have been working in the other direction and with pretty lousy luck.

Charles Bukowski
Men, Luck, Trying

Bullfighting can be an art Boxing can be an art Loving can be an art Opening a can of sardines can be an art

Charles Bukowski
Art, Boxing, Bullfighting
Song: Style

love be damned now as love was damned when it first arrived.

Charles Bukowski
Love Is, Firsts

it seemed to me that I had never met another person on earth as discouraging to my happiness as my father. and it appeared that I had the same effect upon him.

Charles Bukowski
Father, Earth, Mets
Charles Bukowski (2009). “You Get So Alone at Times”, p.27, Harper Collins

A woman has to have something on or there's nothing to take off.

Charles Bukowski
Women
Charles Bukowski (2013). “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”, p.66, City Lights Books

you are on the freeway threading through traffic now, moving both towards something and towards nothing at all as you punch the radio on and get Mozart, which is something, and you will somehow get through the slow days and the busy days and the dull days and the hateful days and the rare days, all both so delightful and so disappointing because we are all so alike and so different.

Charles Bukowski
Moving, Different, Dull Days
Charles Bukowski, “Gamblers All”

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