Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

Poet, Novelist

Charles Bukowski was an American poet and novelist known for his raw, unfiltered portrayal of life, particularly in works like 'Ham on Rye' and 'Post Office.'

People Men Writing Thinking Drinking Running
Born
August 16, 1920
Died
March 9, 1994
Quotes
813
Rank
#20

Quote collection

Charles Bukowski quotes (page 40 of 41)

813 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Charles Bukowski Poet, Novelist
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"After dinner or lunch or whatever it was -- with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what -- I said, "Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us."

Baby Art Jobs
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"It was like a church in there as only the truly lost sit in bars on Tuesday mornings at 8:00 a.m."

Morning Tuesday Church
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"Your parents don't give you much love, do they?' 'I don't need that stuff,' I told her. 'Henry, everybody needs love.' 'I don't need anything.' 'You poor boy."

Boys Giving Parent
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"but right now it's Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Bob Dylan all the way."

Bob Way Dylan
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"but isn't there always one good thing to look back on? think of how many cups of coffee we drank together."

Coffee Thinking Together
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"I've found out why men sign their names to their works- not that they created them but more than the others did not."

Men Names Found
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"Oh, I don’t mean you’re handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes - they’re beautiful. They’re wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire."

Beautiful Crazy Mean
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"I was only kidding about the hundred," she says. oh," I say, "what will it cost me?" she lights her cigarette with my lighter and looks at me through the flame: her eyes tell me. look," I say, "I don't think I can ever pay that price again."

Eye Thinking Light
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"there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate."

Fate Chance Trapped
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"you fall into the mirror, come through the other side staring at a lightbulb."

Fall Mirrors Sides
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"there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone. sitting up in my bed the lights out, hearing the outside sounds, lifting my cheap bottle of wine, letting the warmth of the grape enter me as I heard the rats moving about the room, I preferred them to humans. being lost, being crazy maybe is not so bad if you can be that way undisturbed. New Orleans gave me that. nobody ever called my name."

Crazy Moving Wine
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"my hands dead my heart dead silence adagio of rocks the world ablaze that's the best for me."

Heart Rocks Hands
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"Humanity, you never had it from the beginning." That was my motto."

Humanity Motto My Motto
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"it's good to have things done with when they don't work it's also good not to hate or even forget the person you've failed with."

Hate Done Forget
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"Meanwhile the 3 a.m. drunks of the world would lay in their beds, trying in vain to sleep, and deserving that rest, if they could find it."

Sleep Alcohol Trying
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"There's nothing like privacy. You know, I like people. It's nice that they might like my books and all that...but I'm not the book, see? I'm the guy who wrote it, but I don't want them to come up and throw roses on me or anything. I want them to let me breathe."

Nice Book People
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"I like the way Mahler wandered about in his music and still retained his passion. He must have looked like an earthquake walking down the street."

Passion Earthquakes Mahler
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"Dying should come easy: like a freight train you don't hear when your back is turned."

Dying Easy Should
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"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."

Fall Writing Trying
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"When Ginsburg is at the top of his game you might as well put down your toys and listen."

Games Might Toys
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