Charles Bukowski

“I will always carry you, inside, outside, on my fingertips, and at brain edges.”

“Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.”

“There is a blue bird in my heart that wants to get out.”

“why don't we go back out there and tell them what happened?because nothing happened except that everybody has been driven insane and stupid by life. in this society there are only two things that count: don't be caught without money and don't get caught high on any kind of high.(Night Streets of Madness)”

“I loved youlike a man loves a woman he never touches, onlywrites to, keeps little photographs of. I would haveloved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling acigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,but that didn’t happen. your letters got sadder.your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, alllovers betray.”

“I canalmost understandwhypeopleleapfrombridges.”

“I’ve come by, she says, to tell youthat this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s over. this is it.I sit on the couch watching her arrangeher long red hair before my bedroommirror.She pulls her hair up andpiles it on top of her head-she lets her eyes look atmy eyes-then she drops her hair andlets it fall down in front of her face.We go to bed and I hold herspeechlessly from the backmy arm around her neckI touch her wrists and her handsfeel up to her elbowsno further.”

“she’s mad, but she’s magic.”

“There is nothing quite like the expectancy of the beginning writer, unless it is the conceit of the successful one.”

“she knew what she wanted and it wasn't / me. / I know more women like that than any / other kind.”

“I guess I´m too used to sitting in a small room and making words do a few things. I see enough of humanity at the racetracks, the supermarkets, gas stations, freeways, cafes, etc. This can´t be helped. But I feel like kicking myself in the ass when I go to gatherings, even if the drinks are free. It never works for me. I´ve got enough clay to play with. People empty me. I have to get away to refill. I´m what´s best for me, sitting here slouched, smoking a beedie and watching this creen flash the words. Seldom do you meet a rare or interesting person. It´s more than galling, it´s a fucking constant shock. It´s making a god-damned grouch out of me. Anybody can be a god-damned grouch and most are. Help!”

“A worthwhile day, I had killed two spiders, I had upset the balance of nature - now we would all be eaten up by the bugs and the flies.”

“Long ago, among other lies they were taught that silence was bravery.”

“To create art means to be crazy aloneforever.”

“the tired sunsets and the tired people - it takes a lifetime to die and no time at all.”

“Consummation Of GriefI even hear the mountainsthe way they laughup and down their blue sidesand down in the waterthe fish cryand the water is their tears.I listen to the wateron nights I drink awayand the sadness becomes so greatI hear it in my clockit becomes knobs upon my dresserit becomes paper on the floorit becomes a shoehorna laundry ticketit becomescigarette smokeclimbing a chapel of dark vines. . .it matters littlevery little love is not so bador very little lifewhat countsis waiting on wallsI was born for thisI was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.”

“There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless.”

“That was the trouble with being a writer, that was the main trouble—leisure time, excessive leisure time. You had to wait around for the buildup until you could write and while you were waiting you went crazy, and while you were going crazy you drank and the more you drank the crazier you got.”

“C’erano parecchie cose che mi facevano diventare sentimentale: le scarpe di una donna sotto il letto; una forcina dimenticata sul tavolo da toilette; quel loro modo di dire: <>; i nastri per capelli; camminare lungo il boulevard all’1.30 di pomeriggio, due persone, un uomo e una donna, insieme; le lunghe notti passate a bere e a fumare, a parlare; le liti; il pensiero del suicidio; mangiare insieme e star bene; le battute, le risate senza senso; sentire la magia nell’aria, star chiusi insieme in una macchina parcheggiata; parlare dei propri amori finiti alle 3 di notte; sentirsi dire che si russa, sentirla russare; madri, figlie, figli, gatti, cani; a volte la morte e a volte il divorzio, me sempre andare fino in fondo; leggere il giornale da solo in una tavola calda e avere la nausea perché lei adesso è la moglie di un dentista con un quoziente di intelligenza di 95; gli ippodromi, i parchi, i picnic al parco; perfino le galere; i suoi amici noiosi, i tuoi amici noiosi; il tuo bere, il suo ballare; il suo flirtare, il tuo flirtare; le sue pillole, le tue scopate clandestine, le sue scopate clandestine; dormire insieme…”

“I met a genius on the traintodayabout 6 years old,he sat beside meand as the train ran down along the coastwe came to the oceanand then he looked at meand said,it’s not pretty.”

“If there's anything worse than a whore it's a bore.”

“Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?”

“Coming in from the factory or warehouse, tired enough, there seemed little use for the night except to eat, sleep and then return to the menial job. But there was the typewriter waiting for me in those many old rooms with torn shades and worn rugs, the tub and toilet down the hall, and the feeling in the air of all the losers who had proceeded me. Sometimes the typewriter was there when the job wasn't and the food wasn't and the rent wasn't. Sometimes the typer was in hock. Sometimes there was only the park bench. But at the best of times there was the small room and the machine and the bottle. The sound of the keys, on and on, and shouts: 'HEY! KNOCK THAT OFF, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! WE'RE WORKING PEOPLE HERE AND WE'VE GOT TO GET UP IN THE MORNING!' With broom sticks knocking on the floor, pounding coming from the ceiling, I would work in a last few lines...”

“I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.”

“New affairs were exciting but theywere also hard work. The first kiss, the first fuck had some drama. People were interesting at first. Then later, slowly but surely, all the flaws and madness would manifest themselves. I would become less and less to them; they would mean less and less to me.”

“I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time.”

“Let it die. Let there be a new beginning. It’s awful. Goodnight.”

“Hey, Bubu, a bottle of good French wine...Sip it slowly, do you most good. You'll sleep. Be happy. And if you want to come downstairs, dance and sing, talk, ok. Do what you want. Here's the wine.”

“I see you drinking at a fountain with tinyblue hands, no, your hands are not tinythey are small, and the fountain is in Francewhere you wrote me that last letter andI answered and never heard from you again.you used to write insane poems aboutANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and youknew famous artists and most of themwere your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealousbecause we’ never met. we got close once inNew Orleans, one half block, but never met, nevertouched. so you went with the famous and wroteabout the famous, and, of course, what you found outis that the famous are worried abouttheir fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bedwith them, who gives them that, and then awakensin the morning to write upper case poems aboutANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ toldus, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybeit was the upper case. you were one of thebest female poets and I told the publishers, editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved youlike a man loves a woman he never touches, onlywrites to, keeps little photographs of. I would haveloved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling acigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, alllovers betray. it didn’ help. you saidyou had a crying bench and it was by a bridge andthe bridge was over a river and you sat on the cryingbench every night and wept for the lovers who hadhurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but neverheard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met youI would probably have been unfair to you or youto me. it was best like this.”

“there must be a way.surely there must be a way that we have not yetthought of.who put this brain inside of me?it criesit demandsit says that there is a chance.it will not say"no.”

“I do think that poetry is important though, if you don’t strive at it, if you don’t fill it full of stars and falseness.”

“Love is a horse with a broken leg trying to stand while 45,000 people watch.”

“Dear child, I only did to youwhat the sparrowdid to you; I am old when it isfashionable to be young; I cry when it isfashionable to laugh.I hated you when it would have taken less courage to love.”

“And if you decide to kill somebody,make it anybody and not somebody:some men are made of more special, precious parts:do not kill if you will a president or a King or a man behind a desk -these have heavenly longitudesenlightened attitudes.If you decide,take uswho stand and smoke and glower;we are rusty with sadnessandfeverishwith climbing broken ladders”

“I give you soul. I give you wisdom and light and music and a bit of laughter. Also, I am the world's greatest horseplayer.”

“The secret is writing down one simple line after another.”

“people are not good to each other. perhaps if they were our deaths would not be so sad.”

“terror finally becomes almost bearable but never quiteterror creeps like a cat crawls like a cat across my mind”

“I felt I had to win. It seemed very important. I didn't know why it was important and I kept thinking, why do I think this is so important? And another part of me answered, just because it is.”

“Dismiss perfection as an ache of the greedy, but do not give in to the mass modesty of easy imperfection.”

“Ich bin ein alter Witz, und schlafe ein.”

“Never bring a lot of money to where a poor man lives. He can only lose what little he has. On the other hand it is mathematically possible that he might win whatever you bring with you. What you must do, with money and the poor, is never let them get too close to one another.”

“They were beautiful nothings”

“What good are you? What can you do? It has cost me a thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you!Suppose I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?" "Catch butterflies”

“Love breaks mybones and Ilaugh”

“Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.”

“Beni tanıyan herkesin size söyleyeceği gibi, makbul biri değilim. Kötü adamı sevdim hep, kanunsuzu, hergeleyi. İyi işleri olan sinek kaydı traşlı, kravatlı tiplerden hoşlanmam. Ümitsiz adamları severim, dişleri kırık, usları kırık, yolları kırık adamları. İlgimi çekerler. Küçük sürpriz ve patlamalarla doludurlar. Adi kadınlardan da hoşlanırım; çorapları sarkmış, makyajları akmış, sarhoş ve küfürbaz kadınlardan. Azizlerden çok sapkınlar ilgilendiriyor beni. Serserilerin yanında rahatımdır, çünkü ben de serseriyim. Kanun sevmem, ahlak sevmem, din sevmem, kural sevmem.Toplumun beni şekillekendirmesinden hoşlanmam.”

“I broke that town in half like a wooden match.”

“Nessuno trova mai la persona giusta.”

“I was getting depressed. My life wasn't going anywhere. I needed something, the flashing of lights, glamour, some damn thing. And here I was, talking to the dead. I finished my first drink. The second was ready.”