Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way Quotes

“Why do we embroider everything we say

with special emphasis

when all we really need to do

is simply say what

needs to he said?

Of course

the fact is

that there is very little that needs

to be said.”
― Charles Bukowski, sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way

“but isn't there always
one good thing
to look back on?

think of
how many cups of coffee we
drank together.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“the last cigarettes are smoked, the loaves are sliced,
and lest this be taken for wry sorrow,
drown the spider in wine.

you are much more than simply dead:
I am a dish for your ashes,
I am a fist for your vanished air.

the most terrible thing about life
is finding it gone.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“from the beginning, through the
middle years and up to the
end:
too bad, too bad, too bad.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“little sun little moon little dog
and a little to eat and a little to love
and a little to live for

in a little room
filled with little
mice
who gnaw and dance and run while I sleep
waiting for a little death
in the middle of a little morning

in a little city
in a little state
my little mother dead
my little father dead
in a little cemetery somewhere.

I have only
a little time
to tell you this:

watch out for
little death when he comes running

but like all the billions of little deaths
it will finally mean nothing and everything:

all your little tears burning like the dove,
wasted.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“burning in hell
this piece of me fits in nowhere as other people find things
to do
with their time
places to go
with one another
things to say
to each other.
Iam
burning in hell
some place north of Mexico. flowers don’t grow here.
I am not like
other people
other people are like other people.
they are all alike: joining grouping huddling
they are both gleeful and content andIam
burning in hell.
my heart is a thousand years old.
I am not like other people.
I’d die on their picnic grounds smothered by their flags slugged by their songs unloved by their soldiers gored by their humor murdered by their concern.
I am not like other people. Iam
burning in hell.
the hell of myself.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“no concept of danger,
reality, flow or
compassion.
you can feel the despair
escaping from their
machines,
their lives as hopeless and
as numbed as yours.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“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, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“then I was a young man a thousand years old, and now I am an old man waiting to be born.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“often it takes a lifetime to learn how to
react to certain critical situations.
it's worth waiting for the arrival of maturity
and confidence.
try it sometime and see how delightful it is to feel powerful and
alive.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“You think of killing him
on the spot
but discard that thought and
leave,
down into the urine-stinking
elevator,
they have you crucified too,
America at work,
where they rip out your intestines
and your brain and your
will and your spirit.
They suck you dry, then throw
you away.
The capitalist system.
The work ethic.
The profit motive.
The memory of your father’s words,
“work hard and you’ll be
appreciated.”
of course, only if you make
much more for them than they pay
you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“It’s hell when you’re too good to make money.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“Creation is like anything else good:
You have to wait on it; ambition has killed more
Artists than indolence.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“please take
a picture of this:
a 70-year-old
white whale lurking
within the warm white
whirling water. how did he last?
how did he escape
all the harpoons
for all those years?
why didn’t he get beached
along the way
on the dry
shore?
how did he evade so many
schools of hungry
sharks?”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“anyhow, I’m now using the knife the reader sent me to clean my fingernails.
better this than ripping it deep into somebody’s guts.
I prefer to do that with the poem.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“tonight this room is smoky
and I am alone
listening to the silence.
I am tired of waiting on life,
it was so slow to arrive and so quick to leave.
the streets and the cities are empty,
love is on the damned cross and death laughs in the back room.
at the edge, the edge, the edge.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“once again
I hear of somebody who is going to
settle down and
do their work,
painting or writing or whatever,
as soon as they get a better light
installed,
orassoonastheymovetoanew
city,
or as soon as they come back from the trip they have been planning,
or as soon as . . .
it’s simple: they just don’t want to do it,
or they can’t do it,
otherwise they’d feel a burning itch from hell
they could not ignore and “soon”
would turn quickly into “now.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“Now we are citizens of nothing. the sun itself knows the sad truth of how we surrendered our lives and deaths to simple ritual….how we said no, no, no, no to the most beautiful YES ever uttered -
life itself.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“This future running toward us paralyzes the wallet and the brain.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“What you see on the freeway is just what there is,
a funeral procession of the dead,
the greatest horror of our time in motion.
I’ll see you there tomorrow!”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“nobody can save you

nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

nobody can save you but
yourself
and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.

think about it.
think about saving your self.

Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems (Ecco, January 6, 2004)”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“the way to create art is to burn and destroy ordinary concepts and to substitute them with new truths that run down from the top of the head and out from the heart.”
― Charles Bukowski, sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way

“nothing like a hot bath in a cold world”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“We must be patient with the gods
they like to have fun
they like to play with us.
they like to test us.
they like to tell us that we are weak
and stupid, that we are
finished.
the gods need to be amused.
we are their toys.”
― Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

“we were made to accomplish the easy things and made to live through the things that are hard.”
― Charles Bukowski, sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way

“the gods first play with you and then play against you.”
― Charles Bukowski, sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way

“I am tired of waiting on life, it was so slow to arrive and so quick to leave.”
― Charles Bukowski, sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way