Top 62 Bukowski Poetry Quotes
#1. A man can be old and a fool
many are
a man can be young and wise
few are
Charles Bukowski
#2. What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man's soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.
Charles Bukowski
#3. you say you often feel this madness. what do you do when it comes upon you?
I write poetry.
is poetry madness?
non-poetry is madness.
what is madness?
madness is ugliness.
what is ugly?
to each man, something different.
Charles Bukowski
#4. There are so many days
when living stops and pulls up and sits
and waits like a train on the rails.
Charles Bukowski
#7. Some men never
die
and some men never
live
but we're all alive
tonight.
Charles Bukowski
#9. But as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.
Charles Bukowski
#10. I didn't know who to
believe
but
one thing I do
know: when a man is
living
many claim relationships
that are hardly
so
and after he dies, well,
then it's everybody's
party.
Charles Bukowski
#11. I found the best thing
I could do
was just to type away
at my own work
and let the dying
die
as they always have.
Charles Bukowski
#14. She slammed the door and
was gone.
I looked at the closed door
and at the doorknob
and strangely
I didn't feel
alone.
Charles Bukowski
#17. To die with your boots on while writing poetry is not as glorious as riding a horse down Broadway with a stick of dynamite in your teeth,
Charles Bukowski
#18. Ya got cigarettes?" she asks. "Yes," I say,
"I got cigarettes." "Matches?" she asks.
"Enough to burn Rome." "Whiskey?"
"Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River
of pain." "You drunk?" "Not yet.
Charles Bukowski
#19. Days like this, like your day today.
maybe the rain on the window trying to
get through to you. What do you see today?
what is it? where are you?
the best days are sometimes the first,
sometimes the middle and even sometimes the last
Charles Bukowski
#20. It got so bad that Al thought
maybe it was
him
so he went to a shrink
and asked
and the shrink said,
"you're one of the sanest men
I've ever met."
poor Al.
that made him feel
worse
than ever.
Charles Bukowski
#21. I remember your
saying: "make it
or break it."
neither happened and
it
won't.
Charles Bukowski
#22. I always felt it would
pass.
I listened to the charges against me
knowing some of them to be true
but certainly not
important enough
to become the target of
violence, envy,
vengeance.
I thought it would surely
pass.
Charles Bukowski
#23. The worst thing," he told me,
"is bitterness, people end up so
bitter.
Charles Bukowski
#26. There is something about writing poetry that brings a man close to the cliff's edge.
Charles Bukowski
#27. It's hot tonight and half the neighborhood is drunk. the other half is dead. if I have any advice about writing poetry it's - don't. I'm going to send out for some fried chicken.
Charles Bukowski
#28. The best part was
pulling down the
shades
stuffing the doorbell
with rags
putting the phone
in the
refrigerator
and going to bed
for 3 or 4
days. and the next best
part
was
nobody ever
missed
me.
Charles Bukowski
#29. One doesn't even think of
the liver
and if the liver
doesn't think of
us, that's
fine.
Charles Bukowski
#30. Having nothing to struggle
against
they have nothing to struggle
for.
Charles Bukowski
#31. To me Art (poetry) is a continuous and continuing process and that when a man fails to write good poetry he fails to live fully or well.
Charles Bukowski
#33. Bad poetry is caused by people who sit down and think, Now I am going to write a Poem.
Charles Bukowski
#35. Homosexuals are delicate and bad poetry is delicate and [Allen] Ginsberg turned the tables by making homosexual poetry strong poetry, almost manly poetry; but in the long run, the homo will remain the homo and not the poet.
Charles Bukowski
#36. The world is better without
them.
only the plants and the animals are
true comrades.
I drink to them and with
them.
Charles Bukowski
#37. That your power of command
with simple language was
one of the magnificent things of
our century.
(from the poem: result)
Charles Bukowski
#38. Sometimes all we need to be able to continue alone
are the dead
rattling the walls
that close us in.
Charles Bukowski
#39. You chippy hunk of shit,/don't bad mouth me! I'm/the toughest guy in town, you don't know/who the hell you're in this room/with!
Charles Bukowski
#40. When you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
Charles Bukowski
#41. and gamblers are dry and empty souls, their hearts have been sucked dry, there's no music in their walk, they are colorless and condemned.
Charles Bukowski
#42. 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.
Charles Bukowski
#43. You're afraid of the audience, aren't you?"
"Yes, but it's not stagefright. It's that I'm there as the geek. They like to watch me eat my shit. But it pays the light bill and takes me to the racetrack. I don't have any excuses about why I do it.
Charles Bukowski
#46. I feel no grief for being called something
which
I am not;
in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a good
back rub
Charles Bukowski
#47. She likes that and I like it too because to/make a thing true all you've/got to do is believe
Charles Bukowski
#48. I paid, got up, walked
to the door, opened
it.
I heard the man
say, "that guy's
nuts."
out on the street I
walked north
feeling
curiously
honored.
Charles Bukowski
#49. I believe that to be the world's greatest living
writer
there must be something
terribly wrong with you.
I don't even want to be the world's greatest
dead writer.
just being dead would be fair
enough.
Charles Bukowski
#50. I see a bright
portion
under the overhead light
that shades into
darkness
and then into darker
darkness
and I can't see beyond that.
Charles Bukowski
#53. One can never be sure whether it's good poetry or bad acid
Charles Bukowski
#55. I know that some night
in some bedroom
soon
my fingers will
rift
through
soft clean
hair
songs such as no radio
plays
all sadness, grinning
into flow.
Charles Bukowski
#56. Careful poetry and careful people live only long enough to die safely.
Charles Bukowski
#58. I was compared to Charles Bukowski yesterday. It was the best and worst compliment I've ever gotten.
Rosa Sophia
#59. The centuries are sprinkled with rare magic
with divine creatures
who help us get past the common and extraordinary ills that beset us
Charles Bukowski
#61. I do think that poetry is important though, if you don't strive at it, if you don't fill it full of stars and falseness.
Charles Bukowski
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
