Charles Bukowski: Likeness

Charles Bukowski was American writer. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Charles Bukowski: 1110 quotes288 likes

“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.”

Charles Bukowski

“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.”

Charles Bukowski

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

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

Charles Bukowski book Hollywood

Source: Hollywood

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

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

“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.”

Charles Bukowski

Source: Bone Palace Ballet

“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?”

Charles Bukowski book Post Office

Post Office (1971)

“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?”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Pulp (1994)

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

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“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”

Charles Bukowski

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

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

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 17
Context: I got into bed, opened the bottle, worked the pillow into a hard knot behind my back, took a deep breath, and sat in the dark looking out of the window. It was the first time I had been alone for five days. 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. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me. I took a drink of wine.

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Variant: 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.
Source: Women

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

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

“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.”

Charles Bukowski

“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.”

Charles Bukowski

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last