Charles Bukowski

“Baby," I said, "I'm a genius but nobody knows it but me.”

“I drank for some time, three or four days. I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat. ”

“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.”

“That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man.”

“That scene in the office stayed with me. Those cigars, the fine clothes. I thought of good steaks, long rides up winding driveways that led to beautiful homes. Ease. Trips to Europe. Fine women. Were they that much more clever than I? The only difference was money, and the desire to accumulate it. I'd do it too! I'd save my pennies. I'd get an idea, I'd spring a loan. I'd hire and fire. I'd keep whiskey in my desk drawer. I'd have a wife with size 40 breasts and an ass that would make the paperboy on the corner come in his pants when he saw it wobble. I'd cheat on her and she'd know it and keep silent in order to live in my house with my wealth. I'd fire men just to see the look of dismay on their faces. I'd fire women who didn't deserve to be fired.”

“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.”

“some moments are nice, some arenicer, some are even worthwritingabout.”

“that your power of commandwith simple language wasone of the magnificent things ofour century.(from the poem: result)”

“We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting”

“i was born to hustle roses down the avenue of the dead.”

“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.”

“I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself.”

“I didn't have any friends at school, didn't want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me.”

“my youth,one time,that timeI kneweven through thenothingness,it was a celebrationof something not todobut onlyknow.”

“maybe a damned good night's sleep will bring me back to a gentle sanity.But at the moment, I look about this room and, like myself, it's all in disarray: things fallen out of place, cluttered, jumbled, lost, knocked over and I can't put it straight, don'twant to.Perhaps living through these petty days will get us ready for the dangerous ones.”

“No wonder Van Gogh blasted his head off. Crows and sunlight. Idle zero. Zero eating your guts like an animal inside, letting you shit and fuck and blink your eyes, but nothing, a nothing.”

“When a writer is swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with the turds. ”

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

“If you are going to try, go all the way or don't even start. If you follow it you will be alive with the gods. It is the only good fight there is.”

“He had long nostril hairs, powerfully intimidating, like an unscheduled nightmare.”

“don't be ashamed ofanything; I guess God meant it alllikelocks ondoors.”

“you've got to burnstraight up and downand then maybe sidewisefor a whileand have your gutsscrambled by abullyand the demonicladies,you've got to runalong the edge of madnessteetering,you've got to starvelike a winteralleycat,you've go to livewith the imbecilityof at least a dozencities,then maybemaybemaybeyou might knowwhere you arefor a tinyblinkingmoment.”

“I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future.”

“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”

“The more crap you believe, the better off you are.”

“Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.”

“Banion wondered which was worse - being sodomized by aliens, or having to sit through two hours of Charles Ives.”

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”

“one can never be sure whether it's good poetry or bad acid”

“we were in her big oakbedfacing southso much of the rest of thetimethat I memorizedeach wrinkle in thedrapesand especiallyall the cracks in theceiling.I used to play games withher with that ceiling."see those cracks upthere?""where?""look where I'm pointing...""o.k.""now, see those cracks, see the pattern? it forms and image. do you seewhat it is?""umm, umm ...""go on, what is it?""I know! It's a man on top of a woman!""wrong. it's a flamingo standingby a stream.". . . we finally got free ofone another.it's sad but it'sstandard operating procedure(I am constantly confused bythe lack of durability in humanaffairs).I suppose the parting wasunhappymaybe even ugly.it's been 3 or 4 years nowand I wonder if sheever thinks ofme, of what I am doing?”

“it was like any other relationship, there wasjealousy on both sides,there were split-ups and reconciliations.there were also fragmented moments ofgreat peace and beauty.I often tried to get away from her andshe tied to get away from mebut it was difficult:Cupid, in his strange way, was reallythere.”

“love be damned nowas love was damned when itfirst arrived.”

“it's colder than hell (yes) butthe blankets are thin,and the pulled-down shadesare as full of holes as love is.”

“there are policemen in the streetand angels in the clouds”

“To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, stripping a woman down, and she has a body like a little submarine. With periscope, propellers, torpedoes. That would be the one for me. I'd marry her right off and be faithful to the end.”

“A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.”

“I have loved you womanas surely as I have named yourust and sand and nylon.”

“we drove on and on,past little villages and both good things andbad things were happening to thepeople in those villages too,but I still was nothingbut arms and ears and eyes and maybe there'd beeither some good luck for me ormore death tomorrow.”

“I said goodbye againsucking up all that was left of her into thelittle that was left ofme. I said, 'don't look for me again. fuck it.we are all lost. goodbye, goodbye.”

“I could understand the moon leaning across a bar on skid rowand asking for a drink, but I couldn't understand anything about myself,I was murdered, I was shit, I was a tentful of dogs,I was poppies mowed down by machine-gun fireI was a hotshot wasp in a webI was less and less and still reaching forsomething, and I thought of her corny remarka night or so ago:You have wounded eyes.”

“as shedrove me through the hills everything screamed inside ofme, and I kept saying as we drove along(to myself, of course)fucker, it will pass,everything passes,it's all a jokea joke on you”

“I would certainly end up forever crying the blues into a coffee cup in a park for old men playingchess or silly games of some sort.”

“she was consumed by 3 simple things:drink, despair, loneliness; and 2 more:youth and beauty”

“we had such tremendous funand much agony togetherfor some years”

“morning night and noonthe traffic moves throughand the murder and treacheryof friends and loversand all the peoplemove through you.pain is the joy of knowingthe unkindest truththat arrives without warning.life is being alonedeath is being alone.even the fools weepmorning night and noon.”

“life itself is not the miracle.that pain should be so constant,that's the miracle -”

“I could scream down 90 mountainsto less than dustif only one living human had eyes in the headand 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 drunklisten to the drunk piano,realize the myth of mercystand stillas even a child's voice snarlsand we have not been fooled,it was only that we wanted to believe.”

“You have to die a few times before you can reallylive.”

“I sit heredrunk now.I am a series ofsmall victoriesand large defeatsand I am asamazedas any otherthatI have gottenfrom there toherewithout committing murderor beingmurdered;withouthaving ended up in themadhouse.as I drink aloneagain tonightmy soul despite all the pastagonythanks all the godswho were nottherefor methen.”

“sometimes there's nothing to sayaboutdeath.”