Charles Bukowski citations

Page 5

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Nouveaux contes de la folie ordinaire, 1967, La grande défonce

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

en
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, Back, 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.
Women, 1978

Nouveaux contes de la folie ordinaire, 1967, Notes sur la peste

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Nouveaux contes de la folie ordinaire, 1967, La grande défonce

Journal d'un vieux dégueulasse, 1969

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Variante: 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

Variante: each man's hell is in a different
place: mine is just up and
behind
my ruined
face.
--from Let's Make a Deal
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Factotum

Source: Post Office

Variante: what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.

Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Post Office (1971)
Contexte: Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love.

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 73
Contexte: There were always men looking for jobs in America. There were always all these usable bodies. And I wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them thought they were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i. e., almost everybody could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything.

Post Office (1971)
Contexte: I squeezed Fay’s hand, kissed her on the forehead. She closed her eyes and seemed to sleep then. She was not a young woman. Maybe she hadn’t saved the world but she had made a major improvement. Ring one up for Fay.

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

Source: Ham on Rye

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: Ham on Rye