Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer.
some men never die and some men never live but we're all alive tonight.
I was laying in bed one night and I thought 'I'll just quit - to hell with it. ' And another little voice inside me said 'Don't quit - save that tiny little ember of spark. ' And never give them that spark because as long as you have that spark, you can start the greatest fire again.
The courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over was enormous.
the beautiful are found in the edge of a room crumpled into spiders and needles and silence and we can never understand why they left,they were so beautiful. they dont make it, the beautiful die young and leave the ugly to their ugly lives.
it is good to be sitting some place in public at 2:30 in the afternoon without getting the flesh ripped from your bones.
I do not like to work and have no trade but i do like to eat, so this is basic, the basic training of slaves to fear.
my youth, one time, that time I knew even through the nothingness, it was a celebration of something not to do but only know.
it's good to have things done with when they don't work it's also good not to hate or even forget the person you've failed with.
the history of melancholia includes all of us.
There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little.
Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.
Cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times. I found moments of peace in cheap rooms just staring at the knobs of some dresser or listening to the rain in the dark. The less I needed the better I felt.
I've found out why men sign their names to their works- not that they created them but more than the others did not.
there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad. then I put him back, but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep, do you?
She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn't have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.
bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.
The ladies usually go for the biggest damn fool they can find; that is why the human race stands where it does today: we have bred the clever and lasting Casanovas, all hollow inside, like the chocolate Easter bunnies we foster upon our poor children.
I was beaten down long ago in some alley in another world.
Writing is like going to bed with a beautiful woman and afterwards she gets up, goes to her purse and gives me a handful of money.