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Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 8

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I was in love again. I was in trouble

I was in love again. I was in trouble

Charles Bukowski
Trouble, Love Again
Charles Bukowski (1978). “Women”

if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it.

Charles Bukowski
Heart, Mind, Mouths
Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.3, Zondervan

I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.

Charles Bukowski
Ideas, Space, Interesting
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Women”, Ecco

Women: I liked the colors of their clothing; the way they walked; the cruelty in some faces; now and then the almost pure beauty in another face, totally and enchantingly female. They had it over us: they planned much better and were better organized. While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women, were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding - whether to accept us, discard us, exchange us, kill us or whether simply to leave us. In the end it hardly mattered; no matter what they did, we ended up lonely and insane.

Charles Bukowski
Football, Lonely, Drinking

the way to create art is to burn and destroy ordinary concepts and to substitute them with new truths that run down from the top of the head and out of the heart

Charles Bukowski
Running, Art, Ordinary
Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.91, Zondervan

Look, let me put it this way: with me, you’re number one and there isn’t even a number two.

Charles Bukowski
Love, Unique, Two

Things will be far worse than they are now. And far better. I wait.

Charles Bukowski
Waiting

I knew I was strong, and maybe like they said, "crazy." But I had this feeling inside of me that something real was there.

Charles Bukowski
Strong, Crazy, Real
Charles Bukowski (2001). “Ham On Rye”, p.27, Canongate Books

Once a woman turns against you, forget it. They can love you, then something turns in them. They can watch you dying in a gutter, run over by a car, and they'll spit on you.

Charles Bukowski
Running, Love You, Car
Charles Bukowski (1978). “Women”

Those who preach god, need god Those who preach peace do not have peace Those who preach love do not have love

Charles Bukowski
Needs, Need God
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.148, Canongate Books

The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation.

Charles Bukowski
Betrayal, Males, Damnation
"Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life". Book by Howard Sounes, 1998.

People were interesting at first. Then later, slowly but surely, all the flaws and madness would manifest themselves. I would become less and less to them; they would mean less and less to me.

Charles Bukowski
Mean, People, Interesting
Charles Bukowski (2007). “Women”, Ecco

It’s so easy to be easy—if you let it.

Charles Bukowski
Easy, Ifs

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.

Charles Bukowski
Heart, Want, Tough
Charles Bukowski (2012). “The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993”, p.494, Canongate Books

I was only photographing in words the reality of it all.

Charles Bukowski
Reality

Don't wait for the good woman. She doesn't exist. There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd.

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

If I bet on humanity, I'd never cash a ticket.

Charles Bukowski
Humanity, Cash, Tickets
Charles Bukowski (2009). “sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems”, p.105, Zondervan

If you let them kill you, they will

Charles Bukowski
Ifs

Without literature, life is hell.

Charles Bukowski
Literature, Life Is, Hell

too often, the only escape is sleep

Charles Bukowski
Sleep
Charles Bukowski (2002). “Il grande”, p.196, Feltrinelli Editore

Pretty words, as pretty women, wrinkle up and die.

Charles Bukowski
Wrinkles, Pretty Woman, Pretty Words

I don’t understand people, never will. It looks like I got to travel pretty much alone.

Charles Bukowski
People, Looks
Charles Bukowski, Seamus Cooney (1983). “The Bukowski Purdy letters: a decade of dialogue, 1964-1974”

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

Charles Bukowski
Taken, Anarchy, Ruins

I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions.

Charles Bukowski
Funny, Powerful, Mean
Charles Bukowski (2003). “Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993”

there is a place in the heart that will never be filled a space and even during the best moments and the greatest times times we will know it we will know it more than ever there is a place in the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that space.

Charles Bukowski
Heart, Space, Waiting
Charles Bukowski (2009). “You Get So Alone at Times”, p.26, Harper Collins

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