Eric > Eric's Quotes

“People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
― C.E.M. Joad

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“there is always one woman to save you from another and as that woman saves you she makes ready to destroy”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Great art is horseshit, buy tacos.”
― Charles Bukowski

“In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office

“The fuckers. There, I feel better. God-damned human race. There, I feel better.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

“The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“and I laugh, I can still laugh, who can't laugh when the whole thing
is so ridiculous
that only the insane, the clowns, the half-wits, the cheaters, the whores, the horseplayers, the bankrobbers, the poets ... are interesting?”
― Charles Bukowski, The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

“Some people like what you do, some people hate what you do, but most people simply don’t give a damn.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Finally there is nothing here for death to take away.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“Those faces you see every day on the streets were not created entirely without hope: be kind to them: like you they have not escaped.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“If you're going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.”
― Charles Bukowski

“if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.”
― Charles Bukowski

“After dinner or lunch or whatever it was -- with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what -- I said, "Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office

“What a woman wants is a reaction. What a man wants is a woman.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“It seemed better to delay thinking.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Human relationships were strange. I mean, you were with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stopped. Then there was a short period when you weren't with anybody, then another woman arrived, and you ate with her and fucked her, and it all seemed so normal, as if you had been waiting just for her and she had been waiting for you. I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love,
and how you gave me everything you had
and how I offered you what was left of me.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I didn't like parties.I didn't know how to dance and people frightened me, especially people at parties. They attempted to be sexy and gay and witty and although they hoped they were good at it, they weren 't. They were bad at it. Their trying so hard only made it worse.”
― Charles Bukowski, Hollywood

“The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no people, nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“Goodness can be found sometimes in the middle of hell.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“out of the arms...


out of the arms of one love
and into the arms of another

I have been saved from dying on the cross
by a lady who smokes pot
writes songs and stories,
and is much kinder than the last,
much much kinder,
and the sex is just as good or better.

it isn't pleasant to be put on the cross and left there,
it is much more pleasant to forget a love which didn't
work
as all love
finally
doesn't work...

it is much more pleasant to make love
along the shore in Del Mar
in room 42, and afterwards
sitting up in bed
drinking good wine, talking and touching
smoking

listening to the waves...

I have died too many times
believing and waiting, waiting
in a room
staring at a cracked ceiling
waiting for the phone, a letter, a knock, a sound...
going wild inside
while she danced with strangers in nightclubs...

out of the arms of one love
and into the arms of another

it's not pleasant to die on the cross,
it's much more pleasant to hear your name whispered in the dark.”
― Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

“YOU DULL ME!”
― Bukowski C.

“It was wintertime. I was starving to death trying to be a writer in New York. I hadn't eaten for three or four days. So, I finally said, "I'm gonna have a big bag of popcorn." And God, I hadn't tasted food for so long, it was so good. Each kernel, you know, each one was like a steak! I chewed and it would just drop into my poor stomach. My stomach would say, "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" I was in heaven, just walking along, and two guys happened by, and one said to the other, "Jesus Christ!" The other one said, "What was it?" "Did you see that guy eating popcorn? God, it was awful!" And so I couldn't enjoy the rest of the popcorn. I thought; what do you mean, "it was awful?" I'm in heaven here. I guess I was kinda dirty. They can always tell a fucked-up guy.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’t happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell