One of the American most influential poets Charles Bukowski was born on August 16, 1920. He was the only child of a German mother and an American soldier. During his time, Bukowski was one of the most famous American poets. Over 60 books by Bukowski were published. He wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels. He is best known for his brutal honesty. Here, QuotesGeeks gathered 75 Charles Bukowski famous quotes from his writings.
Top 10 Charles Bukowski Best Books:
- Post Office (1971)
- Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
- Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974)
- Factotum (1975)
- Women (1978)
- Ham on Rye (1982)
- Love Is a Dog from Hell (1977)
- Hot Water Music (1983)
- The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
- You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
75 Charles Bukowski Famous Quotes:
01.
“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”
― Charles Bukowski
02.
“We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.”
― Charles Bukowski
03.
“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.“
― Charles Bukowski
04.
“I like dogs better than men and cats better than dogs and myself best of all, drunk in my underwear looking out the window.”
― Charles Bukowski
05.
“You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn’t deceive anybody. It’s the deceivers who make you feel bad.”
― Charles Bukowski
06.
“You know, doctor, wisdom comes at a hell of an hour—when youth is gone, the storm is over and the girls have gone home.”
― Charles Bukowski
07.
“There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little.”
― Charles Bukowski
08.
“The first place smelled like work, so I took the second.“
― Charles Bukowski
09.
“You have to die a few times before you can really live.”
― Charles Bukowski
10.
“If you don’t have much soul left and you know it, you still got soul.“
— Charles Bukowski
11.
“I stopped looking for a Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn’t a nightmare.“
— Charles Bukowski
12.
“All that shit they were fed about democracy and opportunity was just to keep them from burning down the palace.”
― Charles Bukowski
13.
“Being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.”
― Charles Bukowski
14.
“You women have more holes than swiss cheese.”
― Charles Bukowski
15.
“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.”
― Charles Bukowski
16.
“You women have more holes than swiss cheese.”
― Charles Bukowski
17.
“Nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving. it’s a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it.”
― Charles Bukowski
18.
“The less I needed the better I felt.”
― Charles Bukowski
19.
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts. While the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski
20.
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live.“
― Charles Bukowski
21.
“Nothing is worse than to finish a good shit, then reach over and find the toilet paper container empty. Even the most horrible human being on earth deserves to wipe his ass.”
― Charles Bukowski
22.
“You’ve to die a few times before you actually live.”
― Charles Bukowski
23.
“I don’t hate people. I just feel better when they aren’t around.”
― Charles Bukowski
24.
“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”
― Charles Bukowski
25.
“Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”
― Charles Bukowski
26.
“Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.”
― Charles Bukowski
27.
“My beer drunk soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees of the world.”
― Charles Bukowski
28.
“Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase; then your mind might be free.”
― Charles Bukowski
29.
“The gods play no favorites.”
― Charles Bukowski
30.
“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”
― Charles Bukowski
31.
“Where some god pissed a rain of
― Charles Bukowski
reason to make things grow
only to die.”
32.
“He fell off the table like a crab looking for the sea.”
― Charles Bukowski
33.
“You’re the most unknown famous man I ever met.”
― Charles Bukowski
34.
“Crawled like a blind slug into the web.”
― Charles Bukowski
35.
“We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting.”
― Charles Bukowski
36.
“I never met another man I’d rather be. And even if that’s a delusion, it’s a lucky one.”
― Charles Bukowski
37.
“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.”
― Charles Bukowski
38.
“I wasn’t lonely. I experienced no self-pity. I was just caught up in a life in which I could find no meaning.”
― Charles Bukowski
39.
“I didn’t have any friends at school, didn’t want any. I felt better being alone. I sat on a bench and watched the others play and they looked foolish to me.”
― Charles Bukowski
40.
“Regret is mostly caused by not having done anything.”
― Charles Bukowski
41.
“Regret is mostly caused by not having done anything.”
― Charles Bukowski
42.
“My heart is a thousand years old. I am not like other people.”
― Charles Bukowski
43.
“I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.”
― Charles Bukowski
44.
“I have one problem, I don’t hate people. They disgust me and I want to get away from them. I do not have hatred. I have an escape mechanism.”
― Charles Bukowski
45.
“There’s no clarity.
― Charles Bukowski
There was never meant to be clarity.”
46.
“Basically, that’s why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.”
― Charles Bukowski
47.
“To create art means to be crazy alone forever.”
― Charles Bukowski
48.
“She wasn’t very interesting but few people are.”
― Charles Bukowski
49.
“And love is a word used too much and much too soon.”
― Charles Bukowski
50.
“Some people don’t like anybody who is famous. Some people don’t like anybody who isn’t.”
― Charles Bukowski
51.
“It does seem the more we drink the better the words go.”
― Charles Bukowski
52.
“We really had nothing to do but drink wine and make love.”
― Charles Bukowski
53.
“Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do.”
― Charles Bukowski
54.
“The whole world is a sack of shit ripping open. I can´t save it.”
― Charles Bukowski
55.
“Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.”
― Charles Bukowski
56.
“There is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock.”
― Charles Bukowski
57.
“The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.”
― Charles Bukowski
58.
“She was consumed by 3 simple things: drink, despair, loneliness; and 2 more: youth and beauty.”
― Charles Bukowski
59.
“There are times when those eyes inside your brain stare back at you.”
― Charles Bukowski
60.
“It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.”
― Charles Bukowski
61.
“I drive around the streets an inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality and possible love.”
― Charles Bukowski
62.
“I want so much that is not here and do not know where to go.”
― Charles Bukowski
63.
“It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun.”
― Charles Bukowski
64.
“In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.”
― Charles Bukowski
65.
“The trouble with a mask is it never changes.”
― Charles Bukowski
66.
“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
― Charles Bukowski
67.
“The tigers have found me and I do not care.”
― Charles Bukowski
68.
“People run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water.”
― Charles Bukowski
69.
“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski
70.
“My ambition is handicapped by laziness.”
― Charles Bukowski
71.
“I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.”
― Charles Bukowski
72.
“A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.”
― Charles Bukowski
73.
“Of course it’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them too well.”
― Charles Bukowski
74.
“People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.”
― Charles Bukowski
75.
“Life’s as kind as you let it be.”
― Charles Bukowski
FAQs related to Charles Bukowski Famous Quotes:
#1. What was Charles Bukowski like in person?
Ans: In-person Charles Bukowski was very gentle, friendly and compassionate.
#2. How many poems did Charles Bukowski write?
Ans: Charles Bukowski wrote thousands of poems.
#3. What was Charles Bukowski’s philosophy?
Ans: Charles Bukowski’s Philosophy on Life and Art is“Don’t try.”
#4. Was Bukowski really an alcoholic?
Ans: Charles Bukowski was a lifelong alcoholic.
#5. What is Charles Bukowski’s writing style?
Ans: Charles Bukowski’s actual writing style is simple, direct, and unpretentious.
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