Di > Di's Quotes

“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

“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.”
― Charles Bukowski

“What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“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.”
― Charles Bukowski

“dogs and angels are not
very far apart”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

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

“Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter. Most people make too much of it. On these grounds a good fuck is not to be entirely scorned. But that's the result of a chance meeting too. You're damned right. Drink up. We'll have another.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Learn, he says, that there will be hours, days
and months ahead of feeling absolutely terrible
and nothing can change that; neither new
girlfriends, health professionals, changes of diet, dope, humility, or
God. ”
― Charles Bukowski

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
― Dorothy Parker

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
― Dorothy Parker

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.”
― Dorothy Parker

“I hate writing, I love having written.”
― Dorothy Parker

“we were in her big oak
bed
facing south
so much of the rest of the
time
that I memorized
each wrinkle in the
drapes
and especially
all the cracks in the
ceiling.

I used to play games with
her with that ceiling.

"see those cracks up
there?"

"where?"

"look where I'm pointing..."

"o.k."

"now, see those cracks, see the
pattern? it forms and image. do you see
what 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 standing
by a stream."

. . .

we finally got free of
one another.
it's sad but it's
standard operating procedure
(I am constantly confused by
the lack of durability in human
affairs).

I suppose the parting was
unhappy
maybe even ugly.
it's been 3 or 4
years now
and I wonder if she
ever thinks of
me, of what I am doing?”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
― Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.”
― Simone de Beauvoir

“I just won't sleep," I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road