Quotes from book
Factotum

Factotum
Charles Bukowski

Factotum is the second novel by American author Charles Bukowski.

Charles Bukowski photo

“"I've given you my time. It's all I've got to give - it's all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour."… "my time so that you can live in your big house on the hill and have all the things that go with it. If anybody has lost anything on this deal, on this arrangement… I've been the loser.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 49, Henry Chinaski

Charles Bukowski photo

“Janeway Smithson was a little, insane, grey-haired bantam rooster of a man. He loaded five or six of us in one cab, and we rolled down to the bed of the L. A. River. Now in those days the L. A. River was a fake - there was no water, just a wide, flat, dry cement runway. The bums lived down there by the hundreds in little cement alcoves under the bridges and overpasses. Some of them even had potted plants in front of their places. All they needed to live like kings was canned heat (Sterno) and what they picked out of the nearby garbage dump. They were tan and relaxed and most of them looked a hell of a lot healthier than the average Los Angeles business man. Those guys down there had no problems with women, income tax, landlords, burial expenses, dentists, time payments, car repairs, or with climbing into a voting booth and pulling the curtain closed.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 71

Charles Bukowski photo

“You have a very strange face," she said. "You're not really ugly." "Number four shipping clerk, working his way up." "Have you ever been in love?" "Love is for real people." "You sound real." "I dislike real people." "You dislike them?" "I hate them." We drank some more, not saying much. It continued to snow. Gertrude turned her head and stared into the crowd of people. Then she looked at me. "Isn't he handsome?" "Who?" "That soldier over there. He's sitting alone. He sits so straight. And he's got all his medals on.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

"Come on, let's get out of here."
Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 27

Charles Bukowski photo

“When I went to the Yellow Cab Company I passed the Cancer Building and I remembered that there were worse things than looking for a job you didn't want.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 71

Charles Bukowski photo

“I had lumps all over my body, dizzy spells, I was spitting blood, and I had gone there only to be given an appointment for three weeks later. Now like every American boy I had always been told: catch cancer early. Then you go down to catch it early and they make you wait three weeks for an appointment. That's the difference between what we're told and actuality.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 70

Charles Bukowski photo

“"Someday," I told Jan, "when they demonstrate that the world has four dimensions instead of just three, a man will be able to go for a walk and just disappear. No burial, no tears, no illusions, no heaven or hell. People will be sitting around and they'll say, 'What happened to George?' And somebody will say, 'Well, I don't know. He said he was going out for a pack of cigarettes.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 42

Charles Bukowski photo

“But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 73
Context: 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.

Charles Bukowski photo

“Every man is a poet”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 72, Henry Chinaski

Charles Bukowski photo

“Nothing is worse than to finish a good shit, then reach over and find the toilet paper container empty. Even the most horrible human being on earth deserves to wipe his ass.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum (1975), Ch.65