Charles Bukowski Quotes

There were always men looking for jobs in America. There were always all these usable bodies. And I wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them thought they were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i.e., almost everybody could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything.

I didn't even have a uniform, just a cap. I wore my regular clothes. The way my shackjob Betty and I drank there was hardly money for clothes.

dogs and angels are not
very far apart

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

I wanted the whole world or nothing.

I squeezed Fay's hand, kissed her on the forehead. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep then. She was not a young woman. Maybe she hadn't saved the world but she had made a major improvement. Ring one up for Fay.

The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.

There are times when those eyes inside your brain stare back at you.

Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter. Most people make too much of it. On these grounds a good fuck is not to be entirely scorned. But that's the result of a chance meeting too. You're damned right. Drink up. We'll have another.

I got into bed, opened the bottle, worked the pillow into a hard knot behind my back, took a deep breath, and sat in the dark looking out of the window. It was the first time I had been alone for five days. I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me. I took a drink of wine.

the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

Hell was what you made it.

Lighting new cigarettes,
pouring more
drinks.

It has been a beautiful
fight.

Still
is.

those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that.

An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.