You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense

by Charles Bukowski

the art of consummation: life eating life…

we only have ourselves to go on, and it’s enough…

we’ve got the power of sanity here.

the impossibility of being human all too human

there is a place in the heart that will never be filled

I like it too because to make a thing true all you’ve got to do is believe.

only wanting to live the good life.

I drink alone at this malfunctioning machine as the shadows assume shapes

it has been a beautiful fight still is.

and now as we ready to self-destruct there is very little left to kill which makes the tragedy less and more much much more.

defeat can strengthen just as victory can weaken,

the courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over was enormous.

either they’re right and I’m wrong or I’m right and they’re all wrong or maybe it’s some place in between. most of the people in the world could care less and I often feel the same way.

if you can’t have any luck with one thing you try another.

I didn’t dissolve them, they dissolved themselves.

agony sometimes changes form but it never ceases for anybody.

the price of creation is never too high. the price of living with other people always is.

there was no alternative except to hide as long as possible— not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance: trying to connect.

“the worst thing,” he told me, “is bitterness, people end up so bitter.”

as long as there are human beings about there is never going to be any peace for any individual upon this earth (or anywhere else

all you can do is maybe grab ten lucky minutes here or maybe an hour there.

something is working toward you right now, and I mean you and nobody but you.

having nothing to struggle against they have nothing to struggle for.

the only way I could buy time was with poverty.

we are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we are an unwanted burning

it’s not a nice world,

regret is mostly caused by not having done anything.

I love you but don’t know what to do.

complaint is often the result of an insufficient ability to live within the obvious restrictions of this god damned cage.

I guess that’s why you were such a great painter: you didn’t understand much

what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

before they get to us ensures that when they do they won’t get it all ever.