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Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 22

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I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.

I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.

Charles Bukowski
Hate, People, Hatred

I'll get back to the whores and the horses and the booze, while there's time.

Charles Bukowski
Horse, Booze, Get Back
Charles Bukowski (2013). “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”, p.193, City Lights Publishers

love iz a big fat turkey and every day iz thanksgiving

Charles Bukowski
Turkeys, Bigs, Fats

When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity.

Charles Bukowski
Suicide, Writing, Men
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Women”, Ecco

Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love.

Charles Bukowski
Blood, Suffering, Mouths
Charles Bukowski (2011). “Post Office”, p.129, Random House

God knows I am not too hippy. Perhaps because I am too much around the hip and I fear fads for, like anybody else, I like something that tends to last.

Charles Bukowski
Fads, Too Much, Lasts
Charles Bukowski, David Stephen Calonne (2013). “More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns”, p.5, City Lights Books

I would give anything for a female's hand on me tonight. they soften a man and then leave him listening to the rain.

Charles Bukowski
Rain, Men, Hands
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.301, Canongate Books

You have to lay down in the center of the action lay down and wait until it charges then you must get up face it get it before it gets you the whole process is more shy than vulnerable so lay down and wait sometimes it's ten minutes sometimes it's years sometimes it never arrives but you can't rush it push it there's no way to cheat or get a jump on it you have to lay down lay down and wait like an animal .

Charles Bukowski
Animal, Waiting, Lays
"The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993".

I want to let her know though that all the nights sleeping beside her even the useless arguments were things ever splendid and the hard words I ever feared to say can now be said: I love you.

Charles Bukowski
Love You, Sleep, Night

it's better to be happy...if you can..!!

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

she knew what she wanted and it wasn't / me. / I know more women like that than any / other kind.

Charles Bukowski
Kind, Wanted, Knows

alone with everybody the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and them men drink too much and nobody finds the one but they keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh. there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate. nobody ever finds the one. the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the madhouses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills.

Charles Bukowski
Wall, Fate, Men
Charles Bukowski, “Alone With Everybody”

In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.

Charles Bukowski
Morning, Alive, Stills
Charles Bukowski (2011). “Post Office”, p.160, Random House

I think a man can keep on drinking for centuries, he'll never die; especially wine or beer...I like drunkards, man, because drunkards, they come out of it, and they're sick and they spring back, they spring back and forth...If I hadn't been a drunkard, I probably would have committed suicide long ago.

Charles Bukowski
Suicide, Spring, Drinking

I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!

Charles Bukowski
Lonely, Loneliness, Wine
Charles Bukowski (2003). “Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993”

A day of minor profit or prophet led to a night of drunkenness.

Charles Bukowski
Night, Prophet, Profit
Source: bukowski.net

I once lay in a white hospital for the dying and the dying self, where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die, where on my knees I prayed for LIGHT, I prayed for l*i*g*h*t, and praying crawled like a blind slug into the web where threads of wind stuck against my mind and I died of pity for Man, for myself, on a cross without nails, watching in fear as the pig belches in his sty, farts, blinks and eats.

Charles Bukowski
Rain, Men, Wind

How are his poems?" "He's not as good as he thinks he is, but then most of us feel that way.

Charles Bukowski
Thinking, Way, Feels
Charles Bukowski (2009). “Hollywood”, p.55, Canongate Books

We are Born like 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
Country, War, Hero
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.475, Canongate Books

I never understood society. i undersand that it works somehow and that it functions as a reality and that its realities are necessary to keep us from worse realities. but all i sense are that are plenty of police and jails and judges and laws and that what is meant to protect me is breaking me down.

Charles Bukowski
Reality, Law, Jail

To be young is the only religion.

Charles Bukowski
Young, Be Young
Charles Bukowski (2013). “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”, p.35, City Lights Books

Even the stove and the refrigerator looked human, I mean good human - they seemed to have arms and voices and they said, hang around, kid, it's good here, it can be very good here.

Charles Bukowski
Mean, Kids, Voice
Charles Bukowski (2013). “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”, p.211, City Lights Books

I am too sick to lay down the sidewalks frighten me the whole damned city frightens me, what I will become what I have become frightens me.

Charles Bukowski
Cities, Sick, Sidewalk
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.17, Canongate Books

I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife inside because there was no alternative except to hide as long as possible--- not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance: trying to connect.

Charles Bukowski
Hurt, Self, Knives
Charles Bukowski, “Friends Within The Darkness”

Don't ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out.

Charles Bukowski
Hurt, Writing, Hot

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