Charles Bukowski

"If I never see you again I will always carry you inside, outside; on my fingertips and at brain edges and in centers centers of what I am of what remains."

- Charles Bukowski

"I want to be with you. It's as simple and as complicated as that."

- Charles Bukowski

"I want to be with you. It’s as simple and as complicated as that."

- Charles Bukowski

""I want to be with you. It's as simple and as complicated as that.""

- Charles Bukowski

"Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right."

- Charles Bukowski

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

- Charles Bukowski

"That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man."

- Charles Bukowski

"There's a light somewhere. It may not be much light but it beats the darkness."

- Charles Bukowski

"Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?"

- Charles Bukowski

"I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it's Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!"

- Charles Bukowski

"being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right."

- Charles Bukowski

"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."

- Charles Bukowski

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

- Charles Bukowski

"He asked, “What makes a man a writer?” “Well,” I said, “it’s simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.”"

- Charles Bukowski

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

- Charles Bukowski

"What a weary time those years were — to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability."

- Charles Bukowski

"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."

- Charles Bukowski

"I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again."

- 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

"Too often, the only escape is sleep."

- Charles Bukowski

"Too often the only escape is sleep"

- Charles Bukowski

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

- Charles Bukowski

"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."

- Charles Bukowski

"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."

- Charles Bukowski

"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."

- Charles Bukowski

"There’s nothing to stop a man from writing unless that man stops himself. If a man truly desires to write, then he will. Rejection and ridicule will only strengthen him. And the longer he is held back the stronger he will become, like a mass of rising water against a dam. There is no losing in writing, it will make your toes laugh as you sleep, it will make you stride like a tiger, it will fire the eye and put you face to face with death. You will die a fighter, you will be honored in hell. The luck of the word. Go with it, send it."

- Charles Bukowski

""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.""

- Charles Bukowski

"If you have the ability to love, love yourself first."

- Charles Bukowski

"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."

- Charles Bukowski

"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

"The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you'll live 10 times longer than if you have 10. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever. It's truly ridiculous."

- Charles Bukowski

"You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics."

- Charles Bukowski

"She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire."

- Charles Bukowski