Charles Bukowski (Writer)

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.

The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation.

— Charles Bukowski love

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

— Charles Bukowski soul

If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.

— Charles Bukowski soul

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.

— Charles Bukowski politics

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

— Charles Bukowski art

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

— Charles Bukowski live

To do a dull thing with style-now that's what I call art.

— Charles Bukowski art

It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.

— Charles Bukowski love

There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts.

— Charles Bukowski women

I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.

— Charles Bukowski wrong

I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.

— Charles Bukowski life

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

— Charles Bukowski man

Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.

— Charles Bukowski man

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.

— Charles Bukowski men

The female loves to play man against man. And if she is in a position to do it, there is not one who will resist.

— Charles Bukowski love

Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.

— Charles Bukowski time

If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.

— Charles Bukowski friends

Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.

— Charles Bukowski living

Joan of Arc had style. Jesus had style.

— Charles Bukowski jesus

Never get out of bed before noon.

— Charles Bukowski

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you dont have to waste your time voting.

— Charles Bukowski time

Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.

— Charles Bukowski loneliness

I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.

— Charles Bukowski sin

It’s when you hide things that you choke on them.

— Charles Bukowski you

You have to die a few times before you can really live.

— Charles Bukowski time

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

— Charles Bukowski fire

Our job, and it isn’t a job at all—is to enjoy life as we wish it.

— Charles Bukowski life

I want to be with you, it is as simple, and as complicated as that.

— Charles Bukowski you

I am a series of small victories and large defeats.

— Charles Bukowski

Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?

— Charles Bukowski world

Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself.

— Charles Bukowski self

I was still proud of that moment back then when Jed handed me that pint and I drained a third of it with all the disciples watching. damn, there was no way it seemed we could ever lose but we did.and it took me 3 or 4 decades to move on just a little. and Jed, if you are still here tonight, I forgot to tell you then heres a thanks for that drink.two toughs

— Charles Bukowski men

I will remember the kisses our lips raw with love and how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me, and I will remember your small room the feel of you the light in the window your records your books our morning coffee our noons our nights our bodies spilled together sleeping the tiny flowing currents immediate and forever your leg my leg your arm my arm your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again.

— Charles Bukowski love

Man was born to die. What did it mean? Hanging around and waiting. Waiting for the ‘A train.’ Waiting for a pair of big breasts on some August night in a Vegas hotel room. Waiting for the mouse to sing. Waiting for the snake to grow wings. Hanging around.

— Charles Bukowski man

...maybe a damned good nights sleep will bring me back to a gentle sanity. But at the moment, I look about this room and, like myself, its all in disarray: things fallen out of place, cluttered, jumbled, lost, knocked over and I cant put it straight, dont want to. Perhaps living through these petty days will get us ready for the dangerous ones.

— Charles Bukowski men

Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.

— Charles Bukowski art

The masses are always wrong...Wisdom is doing everything the crowd does not do. All you do is reverse the totality of their learning and you have the heaven theyre looking for.

— Charles Bukowski wisdom

The night kept coming on in and there was nothing I could do.

— Charles Bukowski night

Simplicity is always the secret, to a profound truth, to doing things, to writing, to painting. Life is profound in its simplicity

— Charles Bukowski life

The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate 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 didnt 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 life

dont wait for the good woman. She doesnt exist. There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts. The female loves to play man against man, and if she is in a position to do it there is not one who will not resist. The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal. and torture and damnation. Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.in a letter to Steven Richmond Published in Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life by Howard Sounes

— Charles Bukowski love

I had first learned that I was an idiot in the school yard. I was taunted and poked at and jeered, as were the other one or two idiots. My only advantage over the other one or two, two idiots. My only advantage over the other one or two, who were beaten and chasen, was that I was sullen. When surrounded I was not terrified. They never attacked me but would finally turn on one of the others and beat them as I watched.Ch. 52

— Charles Bukowski ya

in a letter to Steven Richmond Published in Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life by Howard Sounes

— Charles Bukowski life

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Bach, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.

— Charles Bukowski writing

on the radio I heard the news of that day at least 6 times, I was well versed in world affairs. the remainder of the stations played a thin, sick music. the classical stations refused to come in clearly and when they did it was a stale repetition of standard and tiresome works.I turned the radio off. a strange whirling began in my head—it circled behind the forehead, clockwise I began to wonder, is this what happens when one goes mad?jam

— Charles Bukowski time

People need me. I fill them. If they cant see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But if I see them too often I get sick. Its hard to feed without getting fed.

— Charles Bukowski people

there is a place in the heart that will never be filled a space and even during the best moments and the greatest times times we will know it we will know it more than ever there is a place in the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that space.

— Charles Bukowski time

unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, dont do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, dont 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 time

You know the typical crowd, Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.

— Charles Bukowski people

“Look, youre small-town. Ive had over 50 jobs, maybe a hundred. Ive never stayed anywhere long. What I am trying to say is, there is a certain game played in offices all over America. The people are bored, they dont know what to do, so they play the office-romance game. Most of the time it means nothing but the passing of time. Sometimes they do manage to work off a screw or two on the side. But even then, it is just an offhand pasttime, like bowling or t.v. or a New Years Eve party. Youve got to understand that it doesnt mean anything and then you wont get hurt. Do you understand what I mean?

— Charles Bukowski romance

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