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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski Quotes

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“I dislike interaction. The less I say the better I feel. I was naturally a loner. I didn’t want conversation, or to goanywhere. I didn’t understand other people who wanted to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I was drawn to all the wrong things: I was lazy , I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non - being, and I accepted it. I didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. Relationships never worked with me. I alwayslost interest. I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings.”

“I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn’t fit the other. I didn’t care”

“fuck she pulled her dress off over her head and I saw the panties indented somewhat into the crotch. it's only human. now we've got to do it. I've got to do it after all that bluff. it's like a party-- two trapped idiots. under the sheets after I have snapped off the light her panties are still on. she expects an opening performance. I can't blame her. but wonder why she's here with me? where are the other guys? how can you be lucky? having someone the others have abandoned? we didn't have to do it yet we had to do it. it was something like establishing new credibility with the income tax man. I get the panties off. I decide not to tongue her. even then I'm thinking about after it's over. we'll sleep together tonight trying to fit ourselves inside the wallpaper. I try, fail, notice the hair on her head mostly notice the hair on her head and a glimpse of nostrils piglike I try it again.”

“Nothing like beautiful legs. 'Cause with beautiful legs, even if you've been there only once or twice, there might be something up there besides the cunt, there might be something really marvellous this time - it could be a cunt, but it could be - it's just something about looking at the legs just makes you - I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the cunt, I'm just saying, you always imagine - some extra magic when you're looking at the outside portion of the female.”

“when a man puts that uniform on that he is the paid protector of things of the present time. he is here to see that things stay the way they are. if you like the way things are, then all cops are good cops. if you don’t like the way things are, then all cops are bad cops.”

“He even got up once in English class and read an essay called ‘The Value of Friendship’ and while he was reading it he kept glancing at me. It was a stupid essay, soft and standard, but the class applauded when he finished, and I thought, well, that’s what people think and what can you do about it? I wrote a counter-essay called, ‘The Value of No Friendship At All.’ The teacher didn’t let me read it to the class. She gave me a D.”

“L'amore è una forma di pregiudizio. Ami ciò di cui hai bisogno, ami ciò che ti fa star bene, ami ciò che ti torna più utile. Come fai a dire di amare una persona quando ce ne sono almeno diecimila al mondo che ameresti di più solo se le incontrassi? Ma non le incontrerai mai. [...] D'accordo, allora ognuno di noi fa del suo meglio. È assodato. Ma dobbiamo capire che l'amore spesso nasce da un incontro fortuito. La maggior parte della gente ci ricama troppo sopra. Con queste premesse una sana scopata non va del tutto snobbata.”

“To ask them to legalize pot is something like asking them to put butter on the handcuffs before they place them on you: something else is hurting you—that's why you need pot, or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can't think. Or madhouses or mechanical cunts or 162 baseball games in a season. Or Vietnam or Israel or the fear of spiders.”

“the night was beginning and i was standing before the plate glass window of a restaurant and in that window was a roasted pig, eyeless, with an apple in its mouth. poort damned pig. poor damned me. beyond the pig inside there were people sitting at tables talking, eating, drinking i was not one of those people i felt a kinship with the pig we had been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time i imagined myself in the window eyeless, roasted, the apple in my mouth … i walked away from the window i walked to my room i still had a room as i walked to my room i began to conjecture: could i eat some paper? some newspaper? roaches? maybe i could catch a rat? a raw rat? peel off the fur, remove the intestines remove the eyes forego the head, the tail … i walked along. i was so hungry that everything looked eatable: people, fireplugs, asphalt, wristwatches … my belt, my shirt … i sat in a chair i din’t turn on the light i sat there and wondered if i was crazy because i wasn’t doing anything to help myself the hunger stopped then and i just sat there then i heard it: two people in the next room copulating. i could hear the bed spring and the moans i got up, walked out of the room and back into the street. but i walked in a different direction this time i walked away from the pig in the window but i thought about the pig and i decided that i’d die first rather than eat that pig. it began to rain i looked up. i opened my mouth and let in the rain drops… soup from the sky...”