Charles Bukowski: Trending quotes

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Charles Bukowski: 1110 quotes288 likes

“terror finally becomes almost
bearable
but never quite

terror creeps like a cat
crawls like a cat
across my mind”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“It was only the matter of a new voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one's self, like a fingernail.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

“Experience can dull. With most men experience is a series of mistakes; the more experience you have the less you know.”

Charles Bukowski book Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Source: Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“One more drink and you're dead. This is no way to talk to a suicide head.”

Charles Bukowski book Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Source: Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“magic persists without us
no matter what we may do to try to spoil it”

Charles Bukowski

Source: The Pleasures of the Damned

“He fell off the table like a crab looking for the sea.”

Charles Bukowski

“If you can hit a guy once, you can hit him twice.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“Baby," I said, "I’m a genius but nobody knows it but me."

She looked down at me. "Get up off the floor you damn fool and get me a drink.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

“Sometimes you die sometimes you don’t.”

Charles Bukowski

What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“Sex was a trap, a snare. It was for animals.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Pulp (1994)

“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)
here's a thanks
for that drink.”

Charles Bukowski

"two toughs"
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)

“I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions. More often than not Democratic Law works to the advantage of the few even though the many have voted; this, of course, is because the few have told them how to vote. I grow tired of 18th century moralities in a 20th century space-atomic age. If I want to kill myself I feel that should be my business. If I go out and hold up gas stations at night to pay for my supply it is because the law inflates a very cheap thing into an escalated war against my nerves and my soul.”

Charles Bukowski

"This Floundering Old Bastard is the Best Damn Poet in Town", interview by John Thomas, in LA Free Press (1967)
Interviews

“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 book Women

Women (1978)

“Something was always after a man. It never relented. No rest, ever.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Pulp (1994)

“It was the poor part of town—small houses and courts with mailboxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old women inside rolling cigarettes and chewing tobacco and humming to their canaries and watching you, an idiot lost in the rain.”

Charles Bukowski book Post Office

Post Office (1971)

“I thought about taking a shower but I could see the headlines: MAILMAN CAUGHT DRINKING THE BLOOD OF GOD AND TAKING A SHOWER, NAKED, IN A ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. …I found out later that mail for the church was delivered to the parish house around the corner. But now, of course, I knew where to… shower when I'm down and out.”

Charles Bukowski book Post Office

Post Office (1971)

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 52