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Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 32

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
We use such big words to move nowhere.

We use such big words to move nowhere.

Charles Bukowski
Moving, Use, Bigs

Experience can dull. With most men experience is a series of mistakes; the more experience you have the less you know.

Charles Bukowski
Mistake, Men, Dull
Charles Bukowski, David Stephen Calonne (2013). “More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns”, p.7, City Lights Books

there are so many days when living stops and pulls up and sits and waits like a train on the rails.

Charles Bukowski
Waiting, Pull Ups, Rail
Charles Bukowski (2016). “On Love”, p.9, Canongate Books

I can see where creation often stops while the body still lives and often does not care to. the death of life before life dies.

Charles Bukowski
Doe, Body, Care

Four days alone with nothing. Emerge empowered. The first human face you see will knock you back 50%.

Charles Bukowski
Four, Faces, Firsts

my hands dead my heart dead silence adagio of rocks the world ablaze that's the best for me.

Charles Bukowski
Heart, Rocks, Hands

Complaint is often the result of an insufficient ability to live within the obvious restrictions of this god damned cage.

Charles Bukowski
Cages, Restriction, Results

i am going to start selling air in dark orange bags marked: moon-blooms

Charles Bukowski
Dark, Moon, Air

and even the trees we walked under seemed less than trees and more like everything else.

Charles Bukowski
Tree
Charles Bukowski (2009). “You Get So Alone at Times”, p.31, Harper Collins

A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living your life without a man like him around.

Charles Bukowski
Cheating, Believe, Men
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.161, Canongate Books

there must be a way. surely there must be a way that we have not yet thought of. who put this brain inside of me? it cries it demands it says that there is a chance. it will not say "no.

Charles Bukowski
Brain, Demand, Way
Charles Bukowski, “The Crunch”

…He was always high on drugs. I was not a drug man, but in case I wanted to hide from myself for a few days, I knew I could get anything I wanted from him.

Charles Bukowski
Men, Drug, Cases

God is a lonely place without steak.

Charles Bukowski
Lonely, Lonely Places, Steak
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.233, Canongate Books

I was a bore and didn't know when to smile or fake it. Or rather worse, I did but didn't.

Charles Bukowski
Fake, Bores, Knows

I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more foolish. What I need is a good doctor, I thought. You either lived or died.

Charles Bukowski
Couple, Doctors, Years
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.152, Canongate Books

well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. [...]. I want to know about things, what makes them work!

Charles Bukowski
Children, War, Trying

There's nothing like privacy. You know, I like people. It's nice that they might like my books and all that...but I'm not the book, see? I'm the guy who wrote it, but I don't want them to come up and throw roses on me or anything. I want them to let me breathe.

Charles Bukowski
Nice, Book, People

I've found out why men sign their names to their works- not that they created them but more than the others did not.

Charles Bukowski
Men, Names, Found

but isn't there always one good thing to look back on? think of how many cups of coffee we drank together.

Charles Bukowski
Coffee, Thinking, Together
Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.225, Zondervan

soon I'll finish this 5th of Puerto Rican rum. in the morning I'll vomit and shower, drive back in, have a sandwich by 1 p.m., be back in my room by 2, stretched on the bed, waiting for the phone to ring, not answering, my holiday is an evasion, mt reasoning is not.

Charles Bukowski
Morning, Holiday, Phones

I have a face like a washrag. I sing love songs and carry steel. I would rather die than cry. I can't stand hounds can't live without them. I hang my head against the white refrigerator and want to scream like the last weeping of life forever but I am bigger than the mountains.

Charles Bukowski
Song, White, Forever

there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone. sitting up in my bed the lights out, hearing the outside sounds, lifting my cheap bottle of wine, letting the warmth of the grape enter me as I heard the rats moving about the room, I preferred them to humans. being lost, being crazy maybe is not so bad if you can be that way undisturbed. New Orleans gave me that. nobody ever called my name.

Charles Bukowski
Crazy, Moving, Wine

you fall into the mirror, come through the other side staring at a lightbulb.

Charles Bukowski
Fall, Mirrors, Sides

I could scream down 90 mountains to less than dust if only one living human had eyes in the head and heart in the body, but there is no chance, my god, no chance. rat with rat dog with dog hog with hog, play the piano drunk listen to the drunk piano, realize the myth of mercy stand still as even a child's voice snarls and we have not been fooled, it was only that we wanted to believe.

Charles Bukowski
Dog, Children, Believe

The dog approached again, cautiously. I found the bologna sandwich, ripped off a chunk, wiped the cheap watery mustard off, then placed it on the sidewalk. The dog walked up to the bit of sandwich, put his nose to it, sniffed, then turned and walked off. This time he didn't look back. He accelerated down the street. No wonder I had been depressed all my life. I wasn't getting proper nourishment.

Charles Bukowski
Dog, Looks, Sandwiches
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.224, Canongate Books

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