1,615 Quotes by Charles Bukowski

Why do you insist upon destroying yourself?

Careful poetry and careful people live only long enough to die safely.

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.

Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh. I hated you when it would have taken less courage to love.

The poet, as a rule, is a half-man - a sissy, not a real person, and he is in no shape to lead real men in matters of blood, or courage.

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.

The wisdom to quit is all we have left.

I feel no grief for being called something which I am not; in fact, it's enthralling, somehow, like a good back rub

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