Charles Bukowski Quotes

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.

Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men’s crapper of the local bar.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Simplicity is always the secret, to a profound truth, to doing things, to writing, to painting. Life is profound in its simplicity

Don’t fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

Wherever the crowd goes run in the other direction. They’re always wrong.

Much publishing is done through politics, friends, and natural stupidity.

Find what you love and let it kill you.

There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts.

If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.

People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.

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.