Charles Bukowski: Doing (page 2)

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“and getting dressed we talk about what else there might be to do, but being together solves most of it, in fact, solves all of it”

“Everything is beautiful. We have all this beauty in the world and all we have to do is reach out and touch it, it is all there and all ours for the taking." -- Cecilia to Henry Chinaski, liberty taken changing past tense to present tense (173)”

“At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned 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.”

“Sometimes a man doesn’t know what to do about things and sometimes it’s best to lie very still and try not to think at all about anything.”

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

“People don't do me much good.”

“Why do you insist upon destroying yourself?”

“As a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.”

“You can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.”

“they simply never understand,
do they,
that sometimes solitude
is
one of the most beautiful
things
on earth?”

“Why do we embroider everything we say

with special emphasis

when all we really need to do

is simply say what

needs to he said?

Of course

the fact is

that there is very little that needs

to be said.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere and neither was the rest of the world. We were all just hanging around waiting to die and meanwhile doing little things to fill the space. Some of use weren’t even doing little things. We were vegetables.”

“I am not a snob; it is simply that I am not interested with what most people have to say, or what they want to do — mostly with my time.”

“sometimes it's hard to know
what to
do.”

“my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.”