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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski Quotes

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Famous Charles Bukowski Quotes

“I like to prowl ordinary places. I feel sorry for us all or glad for us all caught alive together and awkward in that way. there's nothing better than the joke of us the seriousness of us the dullness of us”

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Book:Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit
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“I write poetry, worry, smile, laugh sleep continue for a while just like most of us just like all of us; sometimes I want to hug all Mankind on earth and say, god damn all this that they've brought down upon us, we are brave and good even though we are selfish and kill each other and kill ourselves, we are the people born to kill and die and weep in dark rooms and love in dark rooms, and wait, and wait and wait and wait. we are the people. we are nothing more.”

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Book:What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
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“I write poetry, worry, smile, laugh sleep continue for a while just like most of us just like all of us; sometimes I want to hug all Mankind on earth and say, god damn all this that they've brought down on us, we are brave and good even though we are selfish and kill each other and kill ourselves, we are the people born to kill and die and weep in dark rooms and love in dark rooms, and wait, and wait and wait and wait. we are the people. we are nothing more.”

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Author:Charles Bukowski
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“There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives ... their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them.... Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.”

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Author:Charles Bukowski
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“Are people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn't have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink's office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one.”

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Author:Charles Bukowski
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“There may not be a hell, but those who judge may create one. I think people are over-taught. They are over-taught everything. You have to find out by what happens to you, how you will react. I'll have to use a strange term here... "good." I don't know where it comes from, but I feel that there's an ultimate strain of goodness born in each of us. I don't believe in God, but I believe in this "goodness" like a tube running through our bodies. It can be nurtured. It's always magic, when on a freeway packed with traffic, a stranger makes room for you to change lanes... it gives you hope.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsGivingFeelsBelieveMayUseBodyHappensRunningI BelieveTermBornRoomsHellMagicTaughtStrangeJudgingGoodnessUltimateDon't BelieveI Believe InStrangerBelieve In GodTrafficStrainLanesTubesFreewaysThose Who Judge
Author:Charles Bukowski
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“This is very important -- to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything...just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That's why they're all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”

PeopleImportantLosesModernPeriodsEssenceAngryMadPaceLeisureFrustratedStoppingDoing NothingHatefulModern SocietyLeisure Time
Author:Charles Bukowski
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“Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death--in a cesspool.”

PeopleFirstsHumansKindTwoRealLostInterestWeekModernMaskKillersTwo WeeksParticipantsHuman RelationshipsModern SocietyImbecilesCrankDementedVengefulZing
Book:Women
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“And it seems people should not build houses anymore it seems people should stop working and sit in small rooms on second floors under electric lights without shades; it seems there is a lot to forget and a lot not to do and in drugstores, markets, bars, the people are tired, they do not want to move, and I stand there at night and look through this house and the house does not want to be built”

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Book:Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
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“To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, stripping a woman down, and she has a body like a little submarine. With periscope, propellers, torpedoes. That would be the one for me. I'd marry her right off and be faithful to the end.”

PeopleThinkingLittlesEndsBodyMightWould BeImagineStandardsJokesDown AndFaithfulAttractiveNudityBeing FaithfulStrippingSubmarinesOne For MeTorpedoesPropeller
Author:Charles Bukowski
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“We are Born like this Into this Into these carefully mad wars Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness Into bars where people no longer speak to each other Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings Born into this Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”

PeopleWarEndsCountryDiesFightingSpeakBornRichBrokenFoolHeroMassWindowSightMadLawyerBarsGuiltyShootingExpensiveEmptinessHospitalsJailFactoriesFistsCheaperMadhouses
Book:The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993
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“There's a small balcony here, the door is open and I can see the lights of the cars on the Harbor Freeway south, they never stop, that roll of lights, on and on. All those people. What are they doing? What are they thinking? We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't.”

PeopleThinkingShouldI CanLightDiesDoorsCarSouthCircusHarborsLove Each OtherFreewaysBalconies
Book:The Captain is Out to Lunch
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“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.”

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Author:Charles Bukowski
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“I was naturally a loner, content just to live with a woman, eat with her, sleep with her, walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches. I didn't understand t.v. I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateur drunks, the bores.”

PeopleWantPlayGamesFeltSleepWalksPartyEmotionShareStreetsConversationTheatreFoolishDirtyHatedBoxingBoresFlirtingLonerBoxing MatchesMovie Theatre
Author:Charles Bukowski
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“You know the typical crowd, Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.”

PeopleKnowsNeedsWritingWellsFormNightMillionsStupidLonelyYeahSorryCrowdsEntertainmentStupidityWowTypicalFridayBotheredStupid PeopleFriday NightMingling
Book:Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993
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