Rajit Saha > Rajit's Quotes

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”
― Charles Bukowski and Carl Weissner

“I stopped looking for a Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

“Pain is strange. A cat killing a bird, a car accident, a fire.... Pain arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It's real. And to anybody watching, you look foolish. Like you've suddenly become an idiot. There's no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands how you feel, and knows how to help.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I often carry things to read
so that I will not have to look at
the people.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

“great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.

good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Lighting new cigarettes,
pouring more
drinks.

It has been a beautiful
fight.

Still
is.”
― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

“Without literature, life is hell.”
― Charles Bukowski

“some moments are nice, some are
nicer, some are even worth
writing
about.”
― Charles Bukowski, War All the Time: Poems 1981 - 1984

“It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.”
― Charles Bukowski, Pulp: Charles Bukowski's Final Hardboiled Noir Comedy – Lady Death, Aliens, and the Absurd