"I can never drive my car over a bridge without thinking of suicide. I can never look at a lake or an ocean without thinking of suicide."
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Quote collection
Charles Bukowski quotes (page 31 of 41)
813 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"You just rebel against everything. How are you going to survive? I don't know. I'm already tired."
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"how can you be true and kind at the same time? how?"
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"Love dries up, I thought as I walked back to the bathroom, even faster than sperm."
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"I do not like to work and have no trade but i do like to eat, so this is basic, the basic training of slaves to fear."
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"like the fox I run with the hunted and if I’m not the happiest man on earth I’m surely the luckiest man alive."
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"I could never accept life as it was, I could never gobble down all its poisons bu there were parts, tenuous magic parts open for the asking."
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"Everything is beautiful. We have all this beauty in the world and all we have to do is reach out and touch it, it is all there and all ours for the taking." -- Cecilia to Henry Chinaski, liberty taken changing past tense to present tense (173)"
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"It was only the matter of a new voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one's self, like a fingernail."
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"Some of my poems indicate that I am writing while living alone after a split with a woman, and I've had many splits with women. I need solitude more often when I'm not writing than when I am."
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"I thought you were sane," I said, "but you're just as crazy as the rest of them."
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"Angels, we have grown apart."
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"I always started a job with the feeling that I'd soon quit or be fired, and this gave ma a relaxex manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power."
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"Finally there is nothing here for death to take away."
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"You don't go on "probably" when love and guns are in hand."
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"I needed a vacation. I needed 5 women. I needed to get the wax out of my ears. My car needed an oil change. I'd failed to file my damned income tax. One of the stems had broken off of my reading glasses. There were ants in my apartment. I needed to get my teeth cleaned. My shoes were run down at the heels. I had insomnia. My auto insurance had expired. I cut myself every time i shaved. I hadn't laughed in 6 years. I tended to worry when there was nothing to worry about. And when there was something to worry about, i got drunk."
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"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."
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"Most people are not ready for death, theirs or anybody elses."
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"Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great."
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"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."
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