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Charles Bukowski Quotes
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554 Quotes for Challenging, Inspiring, and Questioning Life's Perspectives

Discover the words of Charles Bukowski, a legendary writer known for his raw and honest perspective on life. From profound insights to biting sarcasm, delve into a collection of his most famous quotes that will challenge, inspire, and make you question the world around you.

Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer who became known for his work that addressed the lives of poor Americans, writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the monotony of work. He published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses and wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, and six novels over the course of his career. Although he received little attention from academic critics in the United States during his lifetime, Bukowski gained popularity in Europe, particularly in Germany. He has since been the subject of numerous critical articles and books.

Bukowski was born in Germany to a German father and American mother. His family immigrated to Los Angeles when he was a child. Growing up, Bukowski faced abuse from his father and struggles with his appearance due to extreme acne. The Great Depression further fueled his rage as he witnessed economic hardships. In his early teens, Bukowski discovered alcohol as a coping mechanism. After quitting college at the start of World War II, he moved to New York City in hopes of becoming a writer. However, it wasn't until he was treated for a near-fatal bleeding ulcer in 1955 that he began seriously writing poetry. Over time, he formed relationships with various women that provided material for his stories and poems. In 1969 at age 49, Bukowski quit his job at the post office to dedicate himself full-time to writing after receiving an offer from Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin. He continued to submit works to small independent presses throughout his career until his death from leukemia at the age of 73 in March 1994.

✵ 16. August 1920 – 9. March 1994  •  Other names Henry Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski photo
Charles Bukowski: 555 quotes288 likes

Charles Bukowski Quotes

“I was an Agnostic. Agnostics didn't have much to argue about.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn’t have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Variant: She was desperate and she was choosey
at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn't have quite enough going for her to become what
she imagined herself to be.
Source: Factotum

“I had no Freedom. I had nothing.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“The park grass looked greener, the park benches looked better and the flowers were trying harder.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“from the beginning, through the
middle years and up to the
end:
too bad, too bad, too bad.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way

“I was a bore and didn't know when to smile or fake it. Or rather worse, I did but didn't.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: At Terror Street And Agony Way

“yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and back down into the gut”

Charles Bukowski

Source: You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense

“most days go
nowhere
but the avoidance
of pain and
dissolution are
lovely.”

Charles Bukowski book Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

“when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.”

Charles Bukowski

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

“I was fairly poor
but most of my money went
for wine and
classical music.
I loved to mix the two
together.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

“As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a trap. If you are in one and you don't realize it, then you're finished.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

“Pretty words, as pretty women, wrinkle up and die.”

Charles Bukowski

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

Charles Bukowski

“I'll use the knives for spreading
jam, and the gas to warm
my greying love.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

“It’s not so much that nothing means
anything but more that it keeps meaning
nothing.
there’s no release, just gurus and self-
appointed gods and hucksters.
the more people say, the less there is to say.
even the best books are dry sawdust.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“How are his poems?"
"He's not as good as he thinks he is, but then most of us feel that way.”

Charles Bukowski book Hollywood

Source: Hollywood

“First paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L. A. Public Library.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

“theres no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.
nobody ever finds
the one.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Variant: there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.
Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“my hands dead
my heart dead
silence
adagio of rocks
the world ablaze
that's the best
for me.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“all people start to
come apart finally
and there it is:
just empty ashtrays in a room
or wisps of hair on a comb
in the dissolving moonlight.”

Charles Bukowski

“there are policemen in the street
and angels in the clouds”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“I know what a park bench is and the landlord's knock. There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

“Well, people got attatched. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attatched to the other things. Sight, sound, sex, money, mirages, mothers, masturbation, murder, and Monday morning hangovers.”

Charles Bukowski

“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

“I'm no preacher but I can tell you this-the lives that people lead are driving them crazy and their insanity comes out in the way they drive.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 72, Janeway Smithson