Vanessa > Vanessa's Quotes

“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

“We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I sit here
drunk now.
I am
a series of
small victories
and large defeats
and I am as
amazed
as any other
that
I have gotten
from there to
here
without committing murder
or being
murdered;
without
having ended up in the
madhouse.

as I drink alone
again tonight
my soul despite all the past
agony
thanks all the gods
who were not
there
for me
then.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“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

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

“people run from rain but
sit
in bathtubs full of
water.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

“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

“the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them”
― Charles Bukowski

“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.”
― Charles Bukowski

“nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

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.

think about it.
think about saving your self.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Something else is hurting you—that’s why you need pot or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can’t think.”
― Charles Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness

“We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I
think that the
world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just
cats and
rain, rain and cats, very nice, good
night.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?”
― Danielle LaPorte

“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.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Yawn...

I believe that I love sleep
much more than anybody I’ve ever
met.
I have the ability to sleep for
2 or 3 days and
nights.
I will go to bed at any given
moment.
I often confused my girlfriends
this way—
say it would be about onethirty
in the afternoon:
“well, I’m going to bed now, I’m
going to sleep…”
most of them wouldn’t mind, they
would go to bed with me
thinking I was hinting for
sex
but I would just turn my back
and snore off.
this, of course, could explain
why so many of my girlfriends
left me.
as for doctors, they were never
any help:

“listen, I have this desire to
go to bed and sleep, almost all
the time.
what is wrong with
me?”
“do you get enough exercise?”
“yes…”
“are you getting enough
nourishment?”
“yes…”
they always handed me a
prescription
which I threw away
between the office and the
parking lot.
it’s a curious malady
because I can’t sleep between
6 p.m. and midnight.
it must occur after
midnight
and when I arise
it can never be
before noon.
and should the phone ring
say at 10:30 a.m.
I go into a mad rage
don’t even ask who the caller
is
scream into the
phone: “WHAT ARE YOU

CALLING ME FOR AT THIS
HOUR!”
hang
up…
every person, I suppose, has
their eccentricities
but in an effort to be
normal
in the world’s
eye
they overcome them
and therefore
destroy their
special calling.
I’ve kept mine
and do believe that
they have lent generously to
my existence.
I think it’s the main reason I
decided to become a
writer: I can type
anytime and
sleep
when I damn well
please.”
― Charles Bukowski