Mari > Mari's Quotes

“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

“I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“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

“I'm going, she said. I love you but you're
crazy, you're doomed.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“she is no longer
the beautiful woman
she was. she sends
photos of herself
sitting upon a rock
by the ocean
alone and damned.
I could have had
her once. I wonder
if she thinks I
could have
saved her?”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn't help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over the river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“and you invented me
and I invented you
and that's why we don't
get along
on this bed
any longer.
you were the world's
greatest invention
until you
flushed me
away.

now it's your turn
to wait for the touch
of the handle.
somebody will do it
to you,
bitch,
and if they don't
you will -
mixed with your own
green or yellow or white
or blue
or lavender
goodbye.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“alone with everybody


the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and them men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but they keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“the history of melancholia
includes all of us.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“when the phone rings
I too would like to hear words
that might ease
some of this.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I hope that death contains
less than this.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“we know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“It’s so easy to be easy—if you let it.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“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

“I was only kidding about the hundred," she says.

oh," I say, "what will it cost me?"

she lights her cigarette with
my lighter and looks at me
through the flame:

her eyes tell me.

look," I say, "I don't think I
can ever pay that price again.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“Trapped

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin:
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.
she's long ago
forgotten me.
she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.

she is a
child
and a mannequin
and death.
I can't hate
that.
she didn't do
anything
unusual.
I only wanted her
to.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I
have a face like a washrag. I sing
love songs and carry steel.

I would rather die than cry. I can't
stand hounds can't live without them.
I hang my head against the white
refrigerator and want to scream like
the last weeping of life forever but
I am bigger than the mountains.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“eleven months.

now she's gone
gone as they go.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“fuck


she pulled her dress off
over her head
and I saw the panties
indented somewhat into the
crotch.

it's only human.
now we've got to do it.
I've got to do it
after all that bluff.
it's like a party--
two trapped
idiots.

under the sheets
after I have snapped
off the light
her panties are still
on. she expects an
opening performance.
I can't blame her. but
wonder why she's here with
me? where are the other
guys? how can you be
lucky? having someone the
others have abandoned?

we didn't have to do it
yet we had to do it.
it was something like
establishing new credibility
with the income tax
man. I get the panties
off. I decide not to tongue her. even then
I'm thinking about
after it's over.

we'll sleep together
tonight
trying to fit ourselves
inside the wallpaper.

I try, fail,
notice the hair on her
head
mostly notice the hair
on her
head
and a glimpse of
nostrils
piglike

I try it again.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“escape from the black widow spider
is a miracle as great as art.
what a web she can weave
slowly drawing you to her
she'll embrace you
then when she's satisfied
she'll kill you
still in her embrace
and suck the blood from you. ”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“she knew what she wanted and it wasn't / me. / I know more women like that than any / other kind.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I have gotten so used to melancholia that I greet it like an old friend.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“my 6 foot goddess
makes me laugh
the laughter of the mutilated
who still need
love...

she has saved me
from everything that is
not here”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
― Charles Bukowski

“You have to die a few times before you can really
live.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late”
― Charles Bukowski

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“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

“Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.”
― Charles Bukowski