DEATH COMES SLOWLY LIKE ANTS TO A FALLEN FIG

— Charles Bukowski

Don’t be like so many writers, don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don’t be dull and boring and pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-love. The libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleepover your kind. Don’t add to that. Don’t do it.

— Charles Bukowski

Don’t ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out

— Charles Bukowski

Don't you go to the movies?"" Mostly just to eat popcorn in the dark.

— Charles Bukowski

Do you hate people?”“I don't hate them... I just feel better when they're not around.

— 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

During my worst ti meson the park benches in the jails or living withwhoresI always had this certain contentment-I wouldn't call it happiness-it was more of an innerbalancethat settled for whatever was occuringand it helped in thefactoriesand when relationships went wrong with thegirls.it helped through the wars and thehangoversthe back alley fightsthehospitals.to awaken in a cheap rooming a strange city and pull up the shade-this was the craziest kind ofcontentmentand to walk across the floor to an old dresser with cracked mirror-see myself, ugly, grinning at it all. What matters most show well you walk through the fire.

— Charles Bukowski

Dying should come easy:like a freight train youdon't hear when your back is turned.

— Charles Bukowski

Education was the new god, and educated men the new plantation masters.

— Charles Bukowski

Endurance is more important than truth because without endurance there can't be any truth. And truth means going to the end like you mean it. That way, death itself comes up short when it grabs

— Charles Bukowski