Charles Bukowski

“My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.”

“When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.”

“The crazy ones only laugh when there is no reason to laugh.”

“unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it”

“nothing's news.it's the same old thing indisguise.only one thing comes without adisguise and you only see itonce, ormaybe never.like getting hit by a freighttrain.makes us realize that all ourmoaning about long lost girlsin gingham dressesis not so importantafterall.”

“The night kept coming on in and there was nothing I could do.”

“I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.”

“I walk into the kitchen, look at the typer down there on the floor. It's a dirty floor. It's a dirty typer that types dirty stories”

“I'm going to open another vottle. not a vottle, but a bottle. you open it and I'll drink it. and you try to write as much as I did without falling off of your chair.”

“Some lose all mind and become soul,insane.some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual.some lose both and become accepted”

“I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.”

“American women drove hard bargains and the ended up looking the worst for it. The few natural American women left were mostly in Texas and Louisiana.”

“if it doesn't come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don't do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don't do it.”

“Baby, in a couple of minutes I'm going to rip off your god damned panties and show you some turkey neck you'll remember all the way to the graveside. I have a vast and curved penis, like a sickle, and many a gutted pussy has gasped come upon my callous and roach-smeared rug. First let me finish this drink.”

“E allora cosa c'è che non va?.- La gente non mi piace.- Credi che sia una bella cosa?. - No, probabilmente no.”

“Przed chwilą złożono mi życzenia szczęśliwego Nowego Roku w lokalnej telewizji, zrobił to jakiś zidiociały prezenter. Nie lubię, jak mi obcy składa życzenia. Skąd ten kretyn może wiedzieć, do kogo się zwraca? A może mówi do faceta, który właśnie zakneblował i powiesił za nogi pod sufitem swoją pięcioletnią córeczkę, a teraz kroi ją w kawałki? Wszystkiego najlepszego.”

“There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.”

“the tigers have found meand I do not care.”

“I like to change liquor stores frequently because the clerks got to know your habits if you went in night and day and bought huge quantities. I could feel them wondering why I wasn't dead yet and it made me uncomfortable. They probably weren't thinking any such thing, but then a man gets paranoid when he has 300 hangovers a year.”

“each man must realizethat it can all disappear veryquickly:the cat, the woman, the job,the front tire,the bed, the walls, theroom; all our necessitiesincluding love,rest on foundations of sand —and any given cause,no matter how unrelated:the death of a boy in Hong Kongor a blizzard in Omaha . . .can serve as your undoing.all your chinaware crashing to thekitchen floor, your girl will enterand you'll be standing, drunk,in the center of it and she'll ask:my god, what's the matter?and you'll answer: I don't know,I don't know . . .— PULL A STRING, A PUPPET MOVES . . .”

“2 p.m. beernothing mattersbut flopping on a mattresswith cheap dreams and a beeras the leaves die and the horses dieand the landladies stare in the halls;brisk the music of pulled shades,a last man's cavein an eternity of swarmand explosion;nothing but the dripping sink,the empty bottle,euphoria,youth fenced in,stabbed and shaven,taught wordspropped upto die.”

“It was a joy! Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.”

“writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate they stop being writers.”

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

“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. ”

“pain is absurd because it exists, nothing more.”

“Learn, he says, that there will be hours, daysand months ahead of feeling absolutely terribleand nothing can change that; neither newgirlfriends, health professionals, changes of diet, dope, humility, orGod. ”

“What? You’d dare drink right after getting out of jail for intoxication?”That’s when you need a drink the most.”

“I got up and walked back to my roominghouse. The moonlight was bright. My footsteps echoed in the empty street and it sounded as if somebody was following me, I looked around. I was mistaken. I was quite alone.”

“Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.”

“We areBorn like thisInto thisInto these carefully mad warsInto the sight of broken factory windows of emptinessInto bars where people no longer speak to each otherInto fist fights that end as shootings and knifingsBorn into thisInto hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to dieInto lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guiltyInto a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closedInto a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”

“Everything is beautiful. We have all this beauty in the world and all we have to do is reach out and touch it, it is all there and all ours for the taking." -- Cecilia to Henry Chinaski, liberty taken changing past tense to present tense (173)”

“It was like a church in there as only the truly lost sit in bars on Tuesday mornings at 8:00 a.m.”

“Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.”

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

“I have been treated better than I should have been---not by life in general nor by the machinery of things but by women.”

“What's genius? I don't know but I do know that the difference between a madman and a professional is that a pro does as well as he can within whathe has set out to do and a madman does exceptionally well at what he can't help doing.”

“I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.”

“When a hot woman meets a hermit one of them is going to change.”

“I like the way Mahler wandered about in his music and still retained hispassion. He must have looked like anearthquake walking down the street.”

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

“Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with theirlives and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn't so.”

“This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Ya know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that . . . Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don’t wanna do. All the things that I don’t wanna be. Places I don’t wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don’t understand that . . .”

“She Speaks Of Love”

“That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.”

“Look, you're small-town. I've had over 50 jobs, maybe a hundred. I've never stayed anywhere long. What I am trying to say is, there is a certain game played in offices all over America. The people are bored, they don't know what to do, so they play the office-romance game. Most of the time it means nothing but the passing of time. Sometimes they do manage to work off a screw or two on the side. But even then, it is just an offhand pasttime, like bowling or t.v. or a New Year's Eve party. You've got to understand that it doesn't mean anything and then you won't get hurt. Do you understand what I mean?"I think that Mr. Partisan is sincere."You're going to get stuck with that pin, babe, don't forget what I told you. Watch those slicks. They are as phony as a lead dime.”

“After dinner or lunch or whatever it was -- with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what -- I said, "Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us.”

“one day Manuel returned to the place, andshe was gone - no argument, no note, justgone, all her clothesall her stuff, andManuel sat by the window and looked outand didn't make his jobthe next day or thenext day orthe day after, hedidn't phone in, helost his job, got aticket for parking, smokedfour hundred and sixty cigarettes, gotpicked up for common drunk, bailedout, wentto court and pleadedguilty.when the rent was up he moved from Beacon street, heleft the cat and went to live with his brother andthey'd get drunkevery nightand talk about how terriblelife was.Manuel never again smokedlong slim cigarsbecause Shirley always saidhowhandsome he lookedwhen he did.”

“I drive around the streetsan inch away from weeping,ashamed of my sentimentality andpossible love.”

“eleven months.now she's gonegone as they go.”