“If I stop writing I am dead. And that's the only way I'll stop: dead.”
Source: Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993
Filter quotes by topic
Famous Charles Bukowski Quotes
“Intellectuals say simple things in difficult ways. Artists say difficult things in simple ways.”
Source: Ham On Rye
Source: Come On In!: New Poems
“but right now it's Bob Dylan Bob Dylan Bob Dylan all the way.”
Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch
“so it's always a process of letting go, one way or another”
Source: On Love
“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”
“Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”
Source: Charles Bukowski: portions from a wine-stained notebook : uncollected stories and essays, 1944-1990
Source: sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way: New Poems
Source: On Writing
Source: Women
“There's no way I can stop writing, it's a form of insanity.”
Source: Women
Source: Women
“One more drink and you're dead. This is no way to talk to a suicide head.”
Source: Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Source: The Most Beautiful Woman in Town
“How are his poems?" "He's not as good as he thinks he is, but then most of us feel that way.”
Source: Hollywood
Source: Ham On Rye
“Look, let me put it this way: with me, you’re number one and there isn’t even a number two.”
“Drinking is another way of thinking, another way of living. It gives you two lives instead of one.”
“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.”
“Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing”
Source: Ham On Rye
“I am a poem. There is no way out.”
Source: Selected Letters Volume 2: 1965-1970
“An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way”
Source: More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns