Charles Bukowski Quotes: Wisdom and Wit from the Renowned Writer

Find what you love and let it kill you.

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

I don’t hate people. I just feel better when they aren’t around.

We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

I wanted the whole world or nothing.

If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start.

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

I wasn’t much for a petty criminal. I wanted the whole world or nothing.

Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.

How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

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.

The less I needed, the better I felt.

I’m not saying that at the end of the road you get what you deserve, but I’m saying that along the way you get what you deserve.

Writing saved my ass.

When you drink, the world moves with you.

Charles Bukowski Quotes: Wisdom and Wit from the Renowned Writer part 2

To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.

You can either be a hooker or you can be a John but you can’t be both.

If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.

You always hear people saying, ‘I hope I’m not turning into my father,’ but I hope I do. He’s tough.

Find what you love and let it kill you.

You have to die a few times before you can really live.

I don’t hate people. I just feel better when they aren’t around.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

I wasn’t much for petty crime. I wanted the whole world or nothing.

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

I wanted the whole world, or nothing.

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

The best way to resist temptation is to yield to it.

In my plan, I would revise the alcohol and drug laws so that every man would be free and able to get high in his own home without hurting others.

There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out, but I’m too tough for him. I say, ‘Stay in there—I’m not going to let anybody see you.’

I thought careless thoughts, too: I considered repairing a large rock with a hammer that stood beside a new one that I had just made.

My ambition remains limited to 200 copies.

Stories aren’t like that. How come people don’t know that? Stories follow their own rules. You can’t fool with them. All you can do is follow along.

The difference between a writer and a businessman is that the writer realizes he has to go to bed early the next day to be able to get up and write.

When you’re young and good-looking, or old and rich, don’t try to be clever. Just show up.

Art is not a serious occupation.

I hate the word nice, and I use it often against my friends when I want to hurt them.

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.

Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.

The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.

It’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them too well.

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.

If I bet another wrong way horse I’ll be life long full of despair and the church organ will play. I warned you!

In my life, where my death has been decreed in another man’s fantasy, I keep hearing the same theme, the same music, and every time I go out there, on the edge of existence, it remains delicate.

To create is easy, to destroy hard.

I have witnessed things that frightened me. But not as much as uncivilized people. The world’s full of cowards.

Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house, that’s what it means.

The world of the high-born is a warren of snakes, assorted scoundrels and the lowest curtsey, etc…

Do you define yourself as a part of the public or as the public? Leonard Cohen understood that. He’s a good kid. He and Greta Garbo used to room together near Florence, Italy back in 1942.