Charles Bukowski Quotes

German-American writer (1920–1994)

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Charles Bukowski (16 August 1920 – 9 March 1994) was a Los Angeles, California poet and novelist sometimes mistakenly associated with Beat Generation writers because of alleged similarities of style and attitude. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles. He wrote more than fifty books and countless smaller pieces. He is often mentioned as an influence by contemporary authors and his style is frequently imitated.

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Alternative Names: Henry Charles Bukowski • Buk

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Life's as kind as you let it be.

It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are.

Every man is a poet

People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.

and then there are some who
believe that old
relationships can be
revived and made new
again.

but please
if you feel that way

don't phone
don't write
don't arrive

I was given the job of milking the cows, finally, and it got me up earlier than anybody. But it was kind of nice, pulling at those cows' tits (pg. 172).

Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.

If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose

That was all a man needed: hope. It was a lack of hope that discouraged a man. I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.

there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

I never met another man I'd rather be. And even if that's a delusion, it's a lucky one.

Something was always after a man. It never relented. No rest, ever.

People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel hate or love.