“Love is not a candle burning down. Life is. And love and life are not the same or else Love, having choice, nobody would ever die.”

—  Charles Bukowski

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

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Love is not a candle burning down. Life is. And love and life are not the same or else Love, having choice, nobody woul…" by Charles Bukowski?
Charles Bukowski photo
Charles Bukowski555
American writer 1920–1994

Related quotes

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 40
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

“If love was a choice, who would ever choose such exquisite pain?”

Margaret Landon (1903–1993) writer, missionary

Leo Tolstoy photo

“To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. XIV, ch. 15
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Christopher Hitchens photo

“I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

I.
2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012)

Zafar Mirzo photo

“Without love for life, neither human obligations, nor their fulfillment would be possible. Only with love can duty be a free choice and an exciting decent pursuit.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“There’s too much love in the world. Sometimes I think that’s what heaven is---- a place where everybody’s happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

E.M. Forster photo

“She only felt that the candle would burn better, the packing go easier, the world be happier, if she could give and receive some human love.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Tsunetomo Yamamoto photo

“The supreme style of love is unknown love. If the affection is known by the beloved, that love is snob. If you sacrifice your life for the beloved, and she recognises your love after you die, your soul would be appraised.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)

Cassandra Clare photo

“I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there’s a life after that, I’ll love you then.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Jace to Clary, pg. 331
Variant: There is no pretending, I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there is life after that, I'll love you then.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Glass (2009)

“All your problems come down to love. Your love life is what your problem is, and everybody else's on earth. God in existence is man and woman. There's nothing else. And unless you have loved God in existence - your duality which is woman or man - unless you have united with that through love and devotion without going through your feelings of love, you're not going to be enlightened.”

Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Love is not a feeling ~ The Interview (1995)

Related topics