"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. "
— Charles Bukowski

"Do you hate people?

I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around."
— Charles Bukowski (The Movie: Barfly)

"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."
— Charles Bukowski

"We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing. "
— Charles Bukowski

"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."
— Charles Bukowski (Women: A Novel)

"there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late"
— Charles Bukowski

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."
— Charles Bukowski (Factotum)

"what matters most is how well you walk through the fire"
— Charles Bukowski

"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way."
— Charles Bukowski

"“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”"
— Charles Bukowski

"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."
— Charles Bukowski (Women)

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

"I wanted the whole world or nothing."
— Charles Bukowski (Post Office)

"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."
— Charles Bukowski

"you have to die a few times before you can really
live."
— Charles Bukowski (The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New Poems)

"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."
— Charles Bukowski

"Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone."
— Charles Bukowski

"People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love."
— Charles Bukowski (Women)

"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."
— Charles Bukowski

"there is always one woman to save you from another and as that woman saves you she makes ready to destroy"
— Charles Bukowski (Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems, 1974-1977)

"each man's hell is in a different
place: mine is just up and
behind
my ruined
face."
— Charles Bukowski

"there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace"
— Charles Bukowski

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting"
— Charles Bukowski

"in this land some of us fuck more than
we die but most of us die
better than we fuck"
— Charles Bukowski (Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems, 1974-1977)

"Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss."
— Charles Bukowski

"...in that drunken place
you would
like to hand your heart to her
and say
touch it
but then
give it back."
— Charles Bukowski (The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New Poems)

"A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover."
— Charles Bukowski (The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New Poems)

"there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant."
— Charles Bukowski (Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems, 1974-1977)

"Some lose all mind and become soul,insane.
some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual.
some lose both and become accepted"
— Charles Bukowski