CHARLES BUKOWSKI QUOTES
American poet & novelist (1920-1994)
The difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship is that in a Democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a Dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and Tales of Ordinary Madness
An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
If you want to know where God is, ask a drunk.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
letter to Steve Richmond, November 1971
Almost everyone is born a genius and buried an idiot.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Tales of Ordinary Madness
There is nothing as boring as the truth.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Revolution sounds very romantic, you know, but it ain't. it's blood and guts and madness; it's little kids killed who get in the way, it's little kids who don't understand what the fuck is going on. it's your whore, your wife ripped in the belly with a bayonet and then raped in the a** while you watch. it's men torturing men who used to laugh at Mickey Mouse cartoons.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Don't wait for the good woman. She doesn't exist.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
letter to Steve Richmond, November 1971
In New York you've got to have all the luck.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Knowledge without follow-through is worse than no knowledge at all. because if you're guessing and it doesn't work out you can just say, shit, the gods are against me. but if you know and don't do, you've got attics and dark halls in your mind to walk up and down in and wonder about. this ain't healthy, leads to unpleasant evenings, too much to drink and the shredding machine.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Some men hope for revolution but when you revolt and set up your new government you find your new government is still the same old Papa, he has only put on a cardboard mask.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
The public takes from a writer, or a writing, what it needs and lets the remainder go. but what they take is usually what they need least and what they let go is what they need most.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
There is something about writing poetry that brings a man close to the cliff's edge.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Courts are places where the ending is written first and all that precedes is simply vaudeville.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
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.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Sex can sometimes become the most horrible of tasks.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
A woman has to have something on or there's nothing to take off.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Sex is interesting but not totally important. I mean, it's not even as important (physically) as excretion. a man can go 70 years without a piece of ass but he can die in a week without a bowel movement.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man