More Notes of a Dirty Old Man Quotes

“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

“I find that when the pain gets bad enough there are only three things to do — get drunk, kill yourself or laugh. I usually get drunk and laugh.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“New Year’s Eve is like any other eve to me: I drink.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“When I came out of the Charity Ward of the L.A. County General Hospital in 1955 after drinking ten years without missing a night or day (except while in jail) they told me that if I ever took another drink I would be dead. I went back to my shack job and I asked her, “What the hell am I going to do now?” “We’ll play the horses,” she said. “Horses?” “Yeah, they run and you bet on them.” She had found some money on the boulevard so we went out. I had 3 winners, one of them paid over 50 bucks. It seemed very easy. We went out a second time and I won again. That night I decided that if I mixed some wine with milk it might not hurt me. I tried a glass, half wine, half milk. I didn’t die. The next glass I tried a little less milk and a little more wine. By the time the night was over I had been drinking straight wine. In the morning I got up without hemorrhaging. After that I drank and played the horses. 27 years later I am still doing both. Time is made to be wasted...”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“The best people are the ones you never meet.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Only the strong can live alone, the strong and the selfish.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“What’ll I do?” I asked my woman. “You just shit in the bushes.” It was a more crowded camp, one of those roadside machinations, tourists abounding, so I had to put on my clothing. I wasn’t entirely sober. I walked along and looked at the bushes. I selected some. I got out of my bluejeans, hung them on a bush but before I could squat the beershit began; waterfalls began rolling down my legs—wetwash of stinking beer mildewed with improperly chewed and improperly digested food. I grabbed at a bush and squatted, pissed on my feet, and eliminated a few very soft turds. My pants fell off the bush and onto the ground. I leaped up, worried about my wallet. And, of course, it had fallen out of my pants. I staggered about the brush looking for it and managed to step right into my excretia, me who had stolen the land from the Indians.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“It wasn’t ENOUGH that I was working beside him like an idiot; it wasn’t enough for him that I was wasting the few good hours left in my life—no, he also wanted me to share his own mind-soul, to sniff his dirty stockings, to chew on his angers and hates with him. I was not PAID for that, the fucker. And that’s what killed you on the job—not the actual physical work but being closed in with the dead. I”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Do you believe in love?.
'Yes, but only for other people'.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Silence, silence. Then he switched his stool, turned his back to me as much as possible and continued working. I got up and walked to the men’s crapper and stuck my head out the window for fresh air. The guy was my father all over again: RESPONSIBILITY, SOCIETY, COUNTRY, DUTY, MATURITY, all the dull-sounding hard words. But why were they in such agony? Why did they hate so much? It seemed simply that they were very much afraid that somebody else was having a damn good time or was not unhappy most of the time. It seemed that they wanted everybody to carry the same damn heavy rock they were carrying. It wasn’t ENOUGH that I was working beside him like an idiot; it wasn’t enough for him that I was wasting the few good hours left in my life—no, he also wanted me to share his own mind-soul, to sniff his dirty stockings, to chew on his angers and hates with him. I was not PAID for that, the fucker. And that’s what killed you on the job—not the actual physical work but being closed in with the dead.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Nothing that is against the law ever ceases to exist.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“A whore is a woman who takes more than she gives. A man who takes more than he gives is called a businessman.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“When you marry the woman you also marry her entire family.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“When you’ve considered everything, you’ve considered too much.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“A woman always wants to find the core, tame it, mold it; a wise man never shows the core to a woman. He just gives her a shot of light, shuts it off, becomes himself again.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“So many people are doomed by their ambition and their gathered intelligence, their bank account and savings and loan intelligence. If there is any secret to life, that secret is not to try. Let it come to you: women, dogs, death, and creation.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“From the cubicle of the job to the cubicle of resting and waiting to return to the job. The job is the center. The job is the sun. The job is the mother’s breast. To be jobless is the sin; to be lifeless doesn’t matter.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Here in America a man ain’t a man unless he’s got three or four whores and a late model car. All right, I’m a little drunk. Maybe that’s why I mock myself. But put a new car and 3 women on my back and I’m fucked. I don’t have a t.v. I don’t even have a radio. A big Brazilian cunt who wants to put that thing on me, calls me the last of the monsters.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Mindig is jobban éreztem magam egyedül. Amikor az ember egyedül van, az egyetlen problémája önmaga. Jobb úgy. Mert elkerül a baj. Én rendes ember vagyok. Ezt tudtam magamról.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“When the agony of all the people is heard, nothing will be done.”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns

“Are you for LSD?” “I don’t use it.” “Don’t you think it’s a passing fad?” “Nothing that is against the law ever ceases to exist.” “Whatcha mean?” “Forget it.” “Whatcha think of the hippies?” “They don’t harm me.” “Their hair stinks,” he said. “They don’t take baths. They don’t work.” “I don’t like to work either.” “Anything”
― Charles Bukowski, More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns