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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski Quotes

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“The dead do not need aspirin or sorrow, I suppose. but they might need rain. not shoes but a place to walk. not cigarettes, they tell us, but a place to burn. or we're told: space and a place to fly might be the same. the dead don't need me. nor do the living. but the dead might need each other. in fact, the dead might need everything we need and we need so much if we only knew what it was. it is probably everything and we will all probably die trying to get it or die because we don't get it. I hope you will understand when I am dead I got as much as possible.”

“when we were kids laying around the lawn on our bellies we often talked about how we'd like to die and we all agreed on the same thing; we'd all like to die fucking (although none of us had done any fucking) and now that we are hardly kids any longer we think more about how not to die and although we're ready most of us would prefer to do it alone under the sheets now that most of us have fucked our lives away.”

“darkness falls upon Humanity and faces become terrible things that wanted more than there was. all our days are marked with unexpected affronts - some disastrous, others less so but the process is wearing and continuous. attrition rules. most give way leaving empty spaces where people should be. and now as we ready to self-destruct there is very little left to kill which makes the tragedy less and more much much more.”

“as long as there are human beings about there is never going to be any peace for any individual upon this earth (or anywhere else they might escape to). all you can do is maybe grab ten lucky minutes here or maybe an hour there. something is working toward you right now, and I mean you and nobody but you.”

“during my worst times on the park benches in the jails or living with whores I always had this certain contentment- I wouldn't call it happiness- it was more of an inner balance that settled for whatever was occuring and it helped in the factories and when relationships went wrong with the girls. it helped through the wars and the hangovers the backalley fights the hospitals. to awaken in a cheap room in a strange city and pull up the shade- this was the craziest kind of contentment and to walk across the floor to an old dresser with a cracked mirror- see myself, ugly, grinning at it all. what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”

“it is so dark now with the sadness of people they were tricked, they were taught to expect the ultimate when nothing is promised now young girls weep alone in small rooms old men angrily swing their canes at visions as ladies comb their hair as ants search for survival history surrounds us and our lives slink away in shame.”

“I care for you, darling, I love you, the only reason I fucked L. is because you fucked Z. and then I fucked R. and you fucked N. and because you fucked N. I had to fuck Y. But I think of you constantly, I feel you here in my belly like a baby, love I'd call it, no matter what happens I'd call it love, and so you fucked C. and then before I could move you fucked W., so I had to fuck D. But I want you to know that I love you, I think of you constantly, I don't think I've ever loved anybody like I love you.”

“we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecue we are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we are an unwanted burning as we sizzle and fry to the bone the coals of Dante's 'Inferno' spit and sputter beneath us and above the sky is an open hand and the words of wise men are useless it's not a nice world, a nice world it's not ...”

“এই একাকীত্বই মহান এটা যদি তুমি তোমার হাতে থাকা ঘড়ির কাঁটার গতিবিধির সাথে ধীরে ধীরে দ্যাখো। ভালোবাসার কারণে আজ মানুষ খুবই ক্লান্ত বিকলাঙ্গ মানুষ একে অপরের নিকট শুভ নয় তাঁরা একে অপরের প্রতি ধনীরা ধনীর সন্নিকটে শুভ নয় এক ফকিন্নি অপর ফকিন্নি প্রতিও। আমরা ভয়ে আছি। আমাদের শিক্ষাব্যবস্থা আমাদের বলে; নিশ্চই আমরা সবাই একদা বড় মাপের বিজয়ী গাধা হতে পারব। এটা আমাদের কখনো জ্ঞাত করেনি কোন বস্তিজীবন বা কোন আত্মহত্যা সম্বন্ধে। অথবা একটা নির্জনস্থানে একাকী পরে থাকা কোন সন্ত্রাসী অস্পৃষ্ট অদৃষ্ট কোন উদ্ভিদ ভরা জলার সম্বন্ধে।”