“I write as a function. Without it I would fall ill and die. It's as much a part of one as the liver or intestine, and just about as glamorous.”

—  Charles Bukowski

Source: Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I write as a function. Without it I would fall ill and die. It's as much a part of one as the liver or intestine, and j…" by Charles Bukowski?
Charles Bukowski photo
Charles Bukowski 555
American writer 1920–1994

Related quotes

Leslie Feist photo

“Because there's just so much in a day now, I keep writing in much more abstract terms, like I don't try to write about what happened anymore. It would be impossible.”

Leslie Feist (1976) Canadian musician

On attempts at keeping a journal, as quoted in Stylus (20 December 2005)

Charles de Gaulle photo

“I am not ill. But do not worry, one day, I will certainly die.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Je ne vais pas mal. Mais rassurez-vous, un jour, je ne manquerai pas de mourir.
Press conference, February 1965, denying rumours that he secretly had a terminal disease
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2

“In order to write anything profile-driven, I would become the person; and then I would analyse the person from within. Earlier, I would analyse them from without. But if I was going to write about him now, I would do it internally, so then it would be fiction.”

Hilton Als (1961) writer, critic

On how his writing has changed in “Hilton Als: ‘I had this terrible need to confess, and I still do it. It’s a bid to be loved’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/02/hilton-als-interview-pulitzer-prize-criticism-white-girls in The Guardian (2018 Feb 2)

Isaac Asimov photo

“I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
Nicole Krauss photo

“These things were lost to oblivion like so much about so many who are born and die without anyone ever taking the time to write it all down.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love (2005), P. 70

Cassandra Clare photo

“If I made a joke about just dropping in, would you write me off as a cliche?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Jace to Clary, pg. 338
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“I do not know whether it was the will of God, or just an evolutionary accident, but as it happens I am Afrikaans. This is a circumstance with which I am normally perfectly content. The truth is that I actually do not think about it too much, just as I do not think about it too much that I have a liver. The current flutterings about Afrikaans, however, I find disturbing. It is not doing the image of Afrikaners, and hence also of Afrikaans, any good.A mere ten years after the end of apartheid (yes, there was such a thing, and it was evil) to beat one's chest in such a self-justificatory manner, is bad taste morally.…
We are … being called up by certain parties to mobilise for Afrikaans, to fight for the survival of Afrikaans, and for minority rights. The problem is, however, that I do not see myself currently as part of a minority. When, in the 1970s and 1980s, as an Afrikaner, I resisted apartheid – and not in the 1990s when it became fashionable – then I felt myself part of a minority. At present I mainly find myself with an enormous feeling of moral relief. I would now like to carry on with my life and make a constructive contribution at the level of content. I do not wish to have to write letters like this one.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Paul Cilliers. A letter to The Burger, 10 October 2005; Cited in: Chris Brink (2006) No Lesser Place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch. p. 133

Charles Bukowski photo

“I'm going to open another vottle. not a vottle, but a bottle. you open it and I'll drink it. and you try to write as much as I did without falling off of your chair.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Fernando Pessoa photo

“If a man can only write well when drunk, I'll tell him: get drunk. And if he tells me that his liver suffers with it, I'll answer: what's your liver? It's a dead thing that lives as long as you live, and the poems you'll write will live without a as long as.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

English note by the hand of the poet in the same paper sheet: Your poems are of interest to mankind; your liver isn't. Drink till you write well and feel sick. Bless your poems and be damned to you.
Ibid., p. 229
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Se um homem escreve bem só quando está bêbado dir-lhe-ei: embebede-se- E se ele me disser que o seu fígado sofre com isso, respondo: o que é o seu fígado? É uma coisa morta que vive enquanto você vive, e os poemas que escrever vivem sem enquanto.

Related topics