Authors:

Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 21

All Quotes Age Alcohol Anarchy Army Art Beer Bones Boxing Chaos Children Christ Coffee Country Creation Darkness Death Defeat Desire Drinking Dying Earth Evil Failing Feelings Fighting Funny Genius Giving Grief Hangover Hate Hatred Heart Hell House Humanity Hurt Insanity Inspirational Jesus Joy Kissing Laughter Letting Go Life Listening Literature Loneliness Love Luck Lying Madness Magic Mask Mercy Morning Pain Past Prejudice Quitting Rain Reading Reality Running Sadness School Silence Sleep Smoking Solitude Sorrow Soul Stupidity Style Understanding Victory Waiting Wall War Water Whiskey Wife Wine Winning Worry Writing Youth
Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly – all else is desperation.

Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly – all else is desperation.

Charles Bukowski
Nerves, Spirit, Desperation
Charles Bukowski (2011). “Post Office”, p.50, Random House

one more creature dizzy with love

Charles Bukowski
Dizzy, Creatures
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.311, Canongate Books

News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.

Charles Bukowski
News, Newspapers, Happens
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.240, Canongate Books

Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were and love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. One simply became tired of holding back love and let it go because it needed some place to go. Then, usually, there was trouble.

Charles Bukowski
Beautiful, Tired, Back Love

Love dries up, I thought as I walked back to the bathroom, even faster than sperm.

Charles Bukowski
Bathroom, Faster

Once in a dream I saw a snake swallowing its own tail, it swallowed and swallowed until it got halfway round, and there it stopped and there it stayed, it was stuffed with its own self. Some fix, that. We only have ourselves to go on, and it's enough.

Charles Bukowski
Dream, Self, Snakes
Charles Bukowski (2009). “You Get So Alone at Times”, p.19, Harper Collins

Love breaks my bones and I laugh

Charles Bukowski
Laughing, Bones, Break

Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could never cure her eyes of that.

Charles Bukowski
Eye, Looks, Lost

I got up and walked back to my roominghouse. The moonlight was bright. My footsteps echoed in the empty street and it sounded as if somebody was following me, I looked around. I was mistaken. I was quite alone.

Charles Bukowski
Empty, Moonlight, Streets

The public takes from a writer, or a writing, what it needs and lets the remainder go. but what they take is usually what they need least and what they let go is what they need most.

Charles Bukowski
Letting Go, Writing, Needs
Charles Bukowski (2013). “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”, p.99, City Lights Books

Many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman.

Charles Bukowski
Men, Bridges, Good Man
Charles Bukowski (2009). “Women: A Novel”, p.3, Harper Collins

It didn't pay to trust another human being. Humans didn't have it, whatever it took.

Charles Bukowski
Pay, Humans, Human Beings

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others.

Charles Bukowski
Needs, Tools, Censorship
Charles Bukowski (2015). “On Writing”, p.132, Canongate Books

And yet women-good women--frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep.

Charles Bukowski
Strong Women, Soul, Good Woman
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Women”, Ecco

Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.

Charles Bukowski
"Fictional character: Henry Chinaski". "Factotum", www.imdb.com. 2005.

Keep your money in your pocket. Or bet it on a good horse.

Charles Bukowski
Horse, Pockets, Good Horse

how can you be true and kind at the same time? how?

Charles Bukowski
Kind, Being True

Her violence frightened me. She always claimed that I was the jealous one, and I was often jealous, but when I saw things working against me I simply became disgusted and withdrew. Lydia was different. She reacted. She was the Head Cheerleader at the Game of Violence.

Charles Bukowski
Jealous, Games, Different
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Women”, Ecco

If you can hit a guy once, you can hit him twice.

Charles Bukowski
Guy, Ifs

People don't do me much good.

Charles Bukowski
People
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.254, Canongate Books

It was only the matter of a new voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one's self, like a fingernail.

Charles Bukowski
Self, Voice, Matter
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Women”, Ecco

I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready.

Charles Bukowski
Baby, Pockets, Hello
Charles Bukowski (2009). “The Captain is Out to Lunch”, p.13, Harper Collins

LSD, yeah, the big parade – everybody's doin' it now. Take LSD, then you are a poet, an intellectual. What a sick mob. I am building a machine gun in my closet now to take out as many of them as I can before they get me.

Charles Bukowski
Gun, Sick, Intellectual
"Charles Bukowski : Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life". Book by Howard Sounes, 1998.

You don't go on "probably" when love and guns are in hand.

Charles Bukowski
Gun, Hands, Goes On

To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.

Charles Bukowski
Accomplishment, Worthy, Seems

You May Also Like: