Charles Bukowski: Trending quotes

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Charles Bukowski: 1110 quotes288 likes

“Bad taste makes more millionaires than good taste.”

Charles Bukowski book Hollywood

Source: Hollywood

“I was only kidding about the hundred," she says.

oh," I say, "what will it cost me?"

she lights her cigarette with
my lighter and looks at me
through the flame:

her eyes tell me.

look," I say, "I don't think I
can ever pay that price again.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

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

Charles Bukowski

Variant: It's better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it.

“Don't try.”

Charles Bukowski

“People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 52

“people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly – all else is desperation.”

Charles Bukowski book Post Office

Source: Post Office

“as she
drove me through the hills everything screamed inside of
me, and I kept saying as we drove along
(to myself, of course)
fucker, it will pass,
everything passes,
it's all a joke
a joke on you”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“Fiction is an improvement on life”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.
Maybe I'll write a novel, I thought.
And then I did.”

Charles Bukowski book Post Office

Source: Post Office

“sometimes I hate you,"
she said.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women (1978)
Context: I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. I didn't care.

“To create art means
to be crazy alone
forever.”

Charles Bukowski

“When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.”

Charles Bukowski

“having nothing to struggle
against
they have nothing to struggle
for.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“I
think that the
world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just
cats and
rain, rain and cats, very nice, good
night.”

Charles Bukowski book Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

“It seemed better to delay thinking.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.”

Charles Bukowski

“I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.”

Charles Bukowski