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Charles Bukowski

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    Charles Bukowski

    2 p.m. beer nothing matters but flopping on a mattress with cheap dreams and a beer as the leaves die and the horses die and the landladies stare in the halls; brisk the music of pulled shades, a last man's cave in an eternity of swarm and explosion; nothing but the dripping sink, the empty bottle, euphoria, youth fenced in, stabbed and shaven, taught words propped up to die.

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    Charles Bukowski

    A day of minor profit or prophet led to a night of drunkenness.

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    Charles Bukowski

    A dry period for me means perhaps going two or three nights without writing. I probably have dry periods but I'm not aware of them and I go on writing, only the writing probably isn't much good.

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    Charles Bukowski

    After dinner or lunch or whatever it was -- with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what -- I said, "Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us.

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    Charles Bukowski

    agony sometimes changes form but it never ceases for anybody.

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    Charles Bukowski

    a good book can make an almost impossible existence, liveable ( from 'the luck of the word' )

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    Charles Bukowski

    Alcohol is probably one of the greatest things to arrive upon the earth - alongside of me.

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    Charles Bukowski

    All our days are marked with/ unexpected/ affronts--some/ disastrous, others/ less so/ but the process is/ wearing and/ continuous./ Attrition rules./ Most give/ way/ leaving/ empty spaces/ where people should/ be.

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    Charles Bukowski

    all that I know is that I believe in the sound of music and the running of a horse. all else is squabble.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.

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    Charles Bukowski

    alone with everybody the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and them men drink too much and nobody finds the one but they keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh. there's no chance at all: we are all trapped by a singular fate. nobody ever finds the one. the city dumps fill the junkyards fill the madhouses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills.

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    Charles Bukowski

    A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.

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    Charles Bukowski

    A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living your life without a man like him around.

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    Charles Bukowski

    American women drove hard bargains and the ended up looking the worst for it. The few natural American women left were mostly in Texas and Louisiana.

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    Charles Bukowski

    An artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way

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    Charles Bukowski

    And don't forget: time is meant to be wasted, love fails and death is useless.

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    Charles Bukowski

    and getting dressed we talk about what else there might be to do, but being together solves most of it, in fact, solves all of it

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    Charles Bukowski

    And if there is anybody out there who is crazy enough to want to become a writer, I'd say go ahead, spit in the eye of the sun, hit those keys, it's the best madness going, the centuries need help, the species cry for light and gamble and laughter. Give it to them. There are enough words for all of us.

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    Charles Bukowski

    and I laugh, I can still laugh, who can't laugh when the whole thing is so ridiculous that only the insane, the clowns, the half-wits, the cheaters, the whores, the horseplayers, the bankrobbers, the poets ... are interesting?

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    Charles Bukowski

    And it seems people should not build houses anymore it seems people should stop working and sit in small rooms on second floors under electric lights without shades; it seems there is a lot to forget and a lot not to do and in drugstores, markets, bars, the people are tired, they do not want to move, and I stand there at night and look through this house and the house does not want to be built

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    Charles Bukowski

    and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed, shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look at this!" but they don't understand, they say something like,"you say you've been influenced by Celine?" no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by things like this, by this, by this!

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    Charles Bukowski

    and our few good times will be rare because we have the critical sense and are not easy to fool with laughter

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    Charles Bukowski

    and then there are some who believe that old relationships can be revived and made new again. but please if you feel that way don't phone don't write don't arrive

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    Charles Bukowski

    And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.

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    Charles Bukowski

    … and we are in bed together laughing and we don’t care about anything.

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    Charles Bukowski

    and when love came to us twice and lied to us twice we decided to never love again that was fair fair to us and fair to love itself. we ask for no mercy or no miracles; we are strong enough to live and to die and to kill flies, attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack, live on luck and skill, get alone, get alone often, and if you can't sleep alone be careful of the words you speak in your sleep; and ask for no mercy no miracles; and don't forget: time is meant to be wasted, love fails and death is useless.

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    Charles Bukowski

    And yet women-good women--frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep.

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    Charles Bukowski

    An early taste of death is not necessarily a bad thing.

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    Charles Bukowski

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

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    Charles Bukowski

    Any asshole can chase a skirt, art takes discipline.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Anybody can be a non-drunk. It takes a special talent to be a drunk. It takes endurance. Endurance is more important than truth.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Are people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn't have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink's office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Art is its own excuse, and it's either Art or it's something else. It's either a poem or a piece of cheese.

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    Charles Bukowski

    as a child i suppose i was not quite normal. my happiest times were when i was left alone in the house on a saturday.

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    Charles Bukowski

    As a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.

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    Charles Bukowski

    A spark can set a whole forest on fire. Just a spark. Save it.

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    Charles Bukowski

    as the shadows assume shapes I fight the slow retreat now my once-promise dwindling dwindling now lighting new cigarettes pouring more drinks it has been a beautiful fight still is.

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    Charles Bukowski

    As we go on with our lives we tend to forget that the jails and the hospitals and the madhouses and the graveyards are packed.

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    Charles Bukowski

    As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a trap. If you are in one and you don't realize it, then you're finished.

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    Charles Bukowski

    A woman is a full time job. You have to choose your profession.

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    Charles Bukowski

    A woman must be nursed into subsistence by love, where a man can become stronger by being hated." - from 'Cows in Art Class

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    Charles Bukowski

    A yet women -good women- frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price.

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    Charles Bukowski

    "Baby," I said. "I'm a genius but nobody knows it but me.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Bad luck for the young poet would be a rich father, an early marriage, an early success or the ability to do anything well.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Bad poetry is caused by people who sit down and think, Now I am going to write a Poem.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.

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    Charles Bukowski

    bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it

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    Charles Bukowski

    Banion wondered which was worse - being sodomized by aliens, or having to sit through two hours of Charles Ives.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.

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    Charles Bukowski

    Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.