Charles Bukowski

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”

“All our days are marked with/unexpected/affronts--some/disastrous, others/less so/but the process is/wearing and/continuous./Attrition rules./Most give/way/leaving/empty spaces/where people should/be.”

“according to my figures I've only had 2500 pieces of ass but I've watched 12500 horse races, and if I have any advice to anybody, it's this: take up watercolor painting.”

“jan was an excellent fuck...she had a tight pussy and she took it like it was a knife that was killing her.”

“Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.”

“The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.”

“Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.”

“People who believe in politics are like people who believe in God: they are sucking wind through bent straws.”

“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun”

“It's better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it.”

“Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death--in a cesspool.”

“Even the stove and the refrigerator looked human, I mean good human - they seemed to have arms and voices and they said, hang around, kid, it's good here, it can be very good here.”

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

“Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.”

“You gotta find what you like and let it kill you.”

“Anything is a waste of time unless you are fucking well or creating well or getting well or looming toward a kind of phantom-love-happiness.”

“and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear aboutlife and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, lookat this!"but they don't understand, they say something like,"yousay you've been influenced by Celine?"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, bythings like this, by this, by this!”

“I held herwrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless andsick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.there was no creature living as foul as Iand all my poems werefalse.”

“Bad taste makes more millionaires than good taste.”

“This is very important -- to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything...just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That's why they're all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”

“The trouble with a mask is it never changes”

“they say thatnothing is wasted:either thatorit al is”

“My ambition is handicapped by laziness”

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

“Never trust a man in a jumpsuit”

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”

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

“Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.”

“He was always high on drugs. I was not a drug man, but in case I wanted to hide from myself for a few days, I knew I could get anything I wanted from him.”

“But now and then, a woman walks up, full blossom, a woman just bursting out of her dress…a sex creature, a curse, the end of it all.”

“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”

“Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly – all else is desperation.”

“To do a dull thing with style-now that's what I call art. ”

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”

“I climbed the stairway (there was no elevator) and put the key in. The door swung open. Somebody had changed all the furniture around, put in a new rug. No, the furniture was new, too. There was a woman on the couch. She looked all right. Young. Good legs. Blonde. 'Hello,' I said, 'care for a beer?' 'Hi!' she said. 'All right, I'll have one.' 'I like the way this place is fixed up,' I told her. 'I did it myself.' 'But why?' 'I just felt like it,' she said. We each drank at the beer. 'You're all right,' I said. I put my beercan down and gave her a kiss. I put my hand on one of her knees. It was a nice knee. Then I had another swallow of beer. 'Yes,' I said, 'I really like the way this place looks. It's really going to lift my spirits.' 'That's nice. My husband likes it too.' 'Now why would your husband...What? Your husband? Look, what's this apartment number?' '309.' '309? Great Christ! I'm on the wrong floor! I live in 409.”

“the writing of somemenis like a vast bridgethat carries youoverthe many thingsthat claw and tear.The Wine of Forever”

“Não sou esnobe; eu simplesmente não estou interessado no que a maioria das pessoas tem pra dizer, ou no que elas desejam fazer - principalmente com o meu tempo”

“esse cara é legal. ele se matou e a seu pai, sua mãe, e à mulher, mas não atirou nos três filhos nem no cachorro. um dos melhores poetas desde Baudelaire”

“there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the averagehuman being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against itand the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace”

“Do you hate people?”“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”

“those who escape hellhowevernever talk aboutitand nothing muchbothers themafterthat.”

“Any asshole can chase a skirt, art takes discipline.”

“my beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead christmas trees of the world.”