Charles Bukowski Quotes

“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“‎"she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I wasn’t lonely. I experienced no self-pity. I was just caught up in a life in which I could find no meaning.”
― Charles Bukowski

“if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.”
― Charles Bukowski

“the whole world is caught in her glance
and at last
the universe is
magnificent.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“unaccountably we are alone
forever alone
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way–
and when the death struggle
begins
the last thing I wish to see
is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me–
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let only them be there.

I have been alone but seldom
lonely.
I have satisfied my thirst
at the well
of my self
and that wine was good,
the best I ever had,
and tonight
sitting
staring into the dark
I now finally understand
the dark and the
light and everything
in between.

peace of mind and heart
arrives
when we accept what
is:
having been
born into this
strange life
we must accept
the wasted gamble of our
days
and take some satisfaction in
the pleasure of
leaving it all
behind.

cry not for me.

grieve not for me.

read
what I’ve written
then
forget it
all.

drink from the well
of your self
and begin
again.

Mind and Heart”
― Charles Bukowski, Come On In!: New Poems

“I lapsed into my pathetic cut-off period. Often with humans, both good and bad, my senses simply shut off, they get tired, I give up. I am polite. I nod. I pretend to understand because I don’t want anybody to be hurt. That is the one weakness that has lead me into the most trouble. Trying to be kind to others I often get my soul shredded into a kind of spiritual pasta.
No matter. My brain shuts off. I listen. I respond. And they are too dumb to know that I am not there.”
― Charles Bukowski, Hollywood

“the best part was
pulling down the
shades
stuffing the doorbell
with rags
putting the phone
in the
refrigerator
and going to bed
for 3 or 4
days.
and the next best
part
was
nobody ever
missed
me.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

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

“and we are in bed together
laughing
and we don’t care
about anything.”
― Charles Bukowski

“The blankets had fallen off and I stared down at her white back, the shoulder blades sticking out as if they wanted to grow into wings, poke through that skin. Little blades. She was helpless.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office

“I wasn’t going anywhere and neither was the rest of the world. We were all just hanging around waiting to die and meanwhile doing little things to fill the space. Some of use weren’t even doing little things. We were vegetables.”
― Charles Bukowski

“we
sat there
smoking
cigarettes
at
5
in the morning.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Pleasures of the Damned

“Some lose all mind and become soul, insane. Some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual. Some lose both and become accepted.”
― Charles Bukowski

“all theories
like cliches
shot to hell,
all these small faces
looking up
beautiful and believing;
I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe but believe is a
graveyard.
we have narrowed it down to
the butcherknife and the
mockingbird
wish us
luck.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“If I bet on humanity, I'd never cash a ticket.”
― Charles Bukowski

“My body gnaws at me from one side and my spirit gnaws at me from the other.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Christmas poem to a man in jail

hello Bill Abbott:
I appreciate your passing around my books in
jail there, my poems and stories.
if I can lighten the load for some of those guys with
my books, fine.
but literature, you know, is difficult for the
average man to assimilate (and for the unaverage man too);
I don't like most poetry, for example,
so I write mine the way I like to read it.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“God knows I am not too hippy. Perhaps because I am too much around the hip and I fear fads for, like anybody else, I like something that tends to last.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Sometimes things are just what they seem to be and that's all there is to it.”
― Charles Bukowski

“nothing's news.
it's the same old thing in
disguise.
only one thing comes without a
disguise and you only see it
once, or
maybe never.
like getting hit by a freight
train.
makes us realize that all our
moaning about long lost girls
in gingham dresses
is not so important
after
all.”
― Charles Bukowski, Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems

“There's nothing unusual about love.”
― Charles Bukowski

“a pro does as well as he can within what
he has set out to do
and a madman
does exceptionally well at what
he can't help
doing.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“The ass is the face of the soul of sex.”
― Charles Bukowski

“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.”
― Charles Bukowski

“there are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails.”
― Charles Bukowski

“during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Mëso të mos e shkatërrosh me fjalë atë çfarë ke ndërtuar me heshtje.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Ne të gjithë jemi duke shkuar për të vdekur, të gjithë ne, çfarë cirku! Kjo vetë duhet të na bëjë ta duam njëri-tjetrin, por kjo nuk e bën. Ne jemi të terrorizuar dhe të rrafshuar nga trivialiteti, ne jemi duke u ngrënë nga asgjëja.”
― Charles Bukowski