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Charles Bukowski Quotes

Total quotes: 61
“Beware of those that seek constant crowds. They are nothing alone.’”
— Charles Bukowski, The Genius Of The Crows
Tagged: An Introverted Mind
“I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Love, Being In Love, Relationships, Perspective, Reality
“People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be.”
— Charles Bukowski, Factotum
Tagged: Love, Success, Self-Concept, Human Nature
“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't.”
— Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
Tagged: Death, Life, The Human Condition, Living, Loving Each Other
“the courage it took to get out of bed each 
morning 
to face the same things 
over and over 
was 
enormous.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Life, Apathy, Depression, The Daily Grind
“The difference between life and art is art is more bearable.”
— Charles Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, American Author
Tagged: Art, Life, Healing, expression
“I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
— Charles Bukowski, Post Office
Tagged: Extremes, ENFP, ENTP, Having It All, Desire, Lust, Lust For Life, Living Fully, Wanting Someone You Can't Have
“Education was the new god, and educated men the new plantation masters.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Education, Knowledge Is Power, Secular Theology, New Gods
“Having nothing to struggle against, they have nothing to struggle for.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Struggle, Challenge, Obstacles
“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.”
— Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers At Last
Tagged: Writing, Writers, Saving The World, Morality, Good People, Bad People, Artists, Creatives, Creativity
“regret is mostly caused by not having 
done anything.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Regret, Life, Living Fully, Making Mistakes
“Time was motionless while existence was a throbbing unbearable thing.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Time, Life, Unhappy
“I was 50 years old and hadn’t been to bed with a woman for four years.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women: A Novel
Tagged: first lines of books
“I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Being Alone, Alone
“The thought of sex as something forbidden excited me beyond all reason. It was like one animal knifing another into submission.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Taboo, Sex, Forbidden
“Stop insisting on clearing your head — clear your fucking heart instead.”
— Charles Bukowski, Selected Letters Vol. 4(1987-1994)
Tagged: Clearing Your Head, Clearing Your Heart, Clarity, Analyzing, Reflection, Introspection
“I always started a job with the feeling that I'd soon quit or be fired, and this gave me a relaxed manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power.”
— Charles Bukowski, Factotum
Tagged: Jobs, Career, Apathy, Assumptions, Work
“Human relationships were strange. I mean, you were with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stopped.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Relationships, Dating, Love, Break Up
“If you persisted long enough, the good luck usually came. Most people couldn't wait on the luck, though, so they quit.”
— Charles Bukowski, Pulp
Tagged: Persistence, Luck, Waiting, Patience, Determination, Not Giving Up
“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, The Last Night Of The Earth Poems
Tagged: Life, Existentialism, People, The Human Condition, Finding Meaning
“the whole world is caught in her glance
and at last
the universe is
magnificent.”
— Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire
Tagged: Love, Perspective, Lust, Adoration
“I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Relationships, Love, Loneliness, Sex
“you invented me 
and I invented you 
and that's why we don't 
get along 
on this bed 
any longer.”
— Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell
Tagged: Love, Illusion, Idealising Someone, Idealistic Love, Relationships, Disillusionment
“Something else is hurting you - that’s why you need pot or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can’t think.”
— Charles Bukowski, Tales Of Ordinary Madness
Tagged: Pain, Masking Pain, Addiction, Struggle, Escapism
“if it doesn't come bursting out of you 
in spite of everything, 
don't do it.”
— Charles Bukowski, So You Want To Be A Writer
Tagged: Writing, Passion, Compulsion
“being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women: A Novel
Tagged: Lonely, Alone
“A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.”
— Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers At Last
Tagged: Love, Illness, Passion
“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”
— Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
Tagged: Death, Love, War, Fear, Human Struggles
“did she love you?
only as an extension of herself.
what else can love be?”
— Charles Bukowski, Notes Of A Dirty Old Man
Tagged: Love, Love And The Ego, Self-Concept, Falling In Love, Relationships
“Goodness could be found sometimes in the middle of hell. We passed the bottle back and forth as I waited for the cab.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Goodness, Life, Drinking, Relationships
“As a recluse I couldn’t bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Anti-Social, Alone, Traffic, People Are Vampires
“I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of.”
— Charles Bukowski, An Almost Made Up Poem, from "Love Is A Mad Dog From Hell"
Tagged: Poetry, Lovers, Passion, Desire, True Love Waits
““Potential," I said, "doesn't mean a thing. You've got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have.””
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Potential, Taking Action, The Human Condition, Making Change
“there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock”
— Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell
Tagged: Loneliness, Alone, Time, Passage Of Time, Melancholy
“I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.”
— Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire
Tagged: Love, Nostalgia, Pain, Lost Love
“Stay with the beer. Beer is continuous blood, a continuous lover.”
— Charles Bukowski, Love is a Dog From Hell
Tagged: Drinking, Beer, Lover, Blood
“we are all
museums of fear.”
— Charles Bukowski, 171: POEM FOR NOBODY
Tagged: Poetry, Fear, Psychology, Perspective
“You have to die a few times before you can really 
live.”
— Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers At Last
Tagged: Life, Existentialism, Fully Experiencing Life, Embracing Life, Metaphorical Death
“A good writer knew when not to write.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Writing, Good Writers, Timing, Passion
“there's no clarity.
there was never meant to be clarity.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Clarity, Understanding, Finding Your Way, Confusion
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