Charles Bukowski: Likeness

“Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.”

“Money is like sex,' I said. 'It seems much more important when you don't have any…'

'You talk like a writer,' said Francois.”

“A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.”

“Oh, I don’t mean you’re handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes - they’re beautiful. They’re wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire.”

“I don't know if this is true to you but for me
sometimes it gets so bad
that anything else
say like
looking at a bird on an overhead
power line
seems as great as a Beethoven symphony.
then you forget it and you're back
again.”

“Look, you're small-town. I've had over 50 jobs, maybe a hundred. I've 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 don't 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 Year's Eve party. You've got to understand that it doesn't mean anything and then you won't get hurt. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Sometimes I felt that I didn’t even know who I was. All right, I’m Nicky Belane. But check this. Somebody could yell out, ‘Hey, Harry! Harry Martel!’ and I’d most likely answer, ‘Yeah, what is it?’ I mean, I could be anybody, what does it matter?”

“I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.”

“We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting”

“great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.

good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”

“… in that drunken place
you would
like to hand your heart to her
and say
touch it
but then
give it back.”

“I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it.”

“Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss.”

“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun”

“Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.”

“People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.”

“I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself.”

“to fight for each minute is to
fight for what is possible within
yourself,
so that your life and your death
will not be like
theirs.”

“Some people like what you do, some people hate what you do, but most people simply don’t give a damn.”