Charles Bukowski Quotes

[about people]You hate them?[Wanda]No, but I seem to feel better when they’s not around.[Henry]

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It’s like killing yourself, and then you’re reborn. I guess I’ve lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.

There are worse things than being alone but it often takes decades to realize this and most often when you do it’s too late and there’s nothing worse than too late.

I never write in the daytime. It’s like running through the shopping mall with your clothes off. Everybody can see you. At night…that’s when you pull the tricks…magic.

Drinking is another way of thinking, another way of living. It gives you two lives instead of one.

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.

Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.

Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.

Modern women…they don’t sew your pockets…forget that.

It’s all overrated, man. Sex is only a great thing if you’re not getting any.

I enjoy the bad things that are said about me. It enhances [book] sales and makes me feel evil. I don’t like to feel good ’cause I am good. But evil? Yes. It gives me another dimension.