Charles Bukowski
My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don't want it smoothed out.
You can do without a woman but not a typewriter.
Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, 'Don't try.' That fits the writing, too. I don't try; I just type.
In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.
The female loves to play man against man. And if she is in a position to do it, there is not one who will resist.
Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I'll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master... it's when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.
Sometimes I've called writing a disease. If so, I'm glad that it caught me.
I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don't even know I'm working on. It's a free lunch. A free dinner. I don't know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.
I don't write so much now. I'm getting on 33, pot belly and creeping dementia.
Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.
When I say that basically writing is a hard hustle, I don't mean that it is a bad life, if one can get away with it. It's the miracle of miracles to make a living by the typer.
Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.
When I write, when I'm going hot, I don't want to write more than four hours in a row. After that, you're pushing it.
Writers have to put up with this editor thing; it is ageless and eternal and wrong.
Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: 'Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?' They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.
Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?Collection: Inspirational
The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.Collection: Faith
Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.Collection: Ordinary World
Wherever the crowd goes run in the other direction. They're always wrong.Collection: Running
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.Collection: Life
If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.Collection: Book
If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.Collection: Trying
Don't fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.Collection: Nice
what matters most is how well you walk through the fireCollection: Motivational
The wisest thing to do if you’re living in hell is to make yourself comfortable.Collection: Hell
Find what you love and let it kill you.Collection: Love
I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.Collection: Thinking
Some people like what you do, some people hate what you do, but most people simply don't give a damn.Collection: Hate
You have to die a few times before you can really live.Collection: Inspirational
Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.Collection: Color
nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving. it’s a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it.Collection: War
I stopped looking for a Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare.Collection: Girl
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.Collection: Love
An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple wayCollection: Art
Do you hate people? I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.Collection: Hate
We must.. We must bring our own light to the darknessCollection: Light
The world is full of boring, identical and mindless people.Collection: People
Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer.Collection: Dentist
I wanted the whole world or nothing.Collection: World
The public takes from a writer, or a writing, what it needs and lets the remainder go. but what they take is usually what they need least and what they let go is what they need most.Collection: Letting Go
I got up and walked back to my roominghouse. The moonlight was bright. My footsteps echoed in the empty street and it sounded as if somebody was following me, I looked around. I was mistaken. I was quite alone.Collection: Empty
Food is good for the nerves and the spirit. Courage comes from the belly – all else is desperation.Collection: Nerves
News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens.Collection: News
one more creature dizzy with loveCollection: Dizzy
Love breaks my bones and I laughCollection: Laughing
Her eyes always had a frantic, lost look. He could never cure her eyes of that.Collection: Eye
And yet women-good women--frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep.Collection: Strong Women
Many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman.Collection: Men