Charles Bukowski Quotes - Page 2

Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.

A good writer knew when not to write. Anybody could type. Not that I was a good typist; also I couldn't spell and I didn't know grammar. But I knew when not to write. It was like fucking. You had to rest the godhead now and then.

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.

it does seem
the more we drink
the better the words
go.

I feel no grief for being called something
which
I am not;
in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a good
back rub

Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it.

That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.

Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.

MR. JONSTONE IS A FINE MAN!
Don't be silly. He's an obvious sadist, I said.

I´ve given you my time. Its all I´ve got to give - its all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.

I decided to stay in bed until noon. Maybe by then half the world would be dead and it would only be half as hard to take.

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?"

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.

It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.

I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.

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.

It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun

be it peace or happiness
let it enfold you

You gotta find what you like and let it kill you.

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.