1,615 Quotes by Charles Bukowski

A good writer knew when not to write. Anybody could type. Not that I was a good typist; also I couldn't spell and I didn't know grammar. But I knew when not to write. It was like fucking. You had to rest the godhead now and then.

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.

You know, doctor, wisdom comes at a hell of an hour—when youth is gone, the storm is over and the girls have gone home.

Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.

That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it.

Exercise makes you look better naked. So does Tequila. Your choice.

How come you walk so funny?""I was frying some chicken in the pan and the grease exploded, it burned my legs.""I thought maybe you had war wounds.""No, the chicken did it.

if you want to find out who your friends arego to a madhouse or jail.and if you want to find out where love is notbe a perpetual loser.

Well it’s good to have a car like that, once in a while somebody’ll say, ‘why don’t you come over for dinner?’ and I can just say, ‘Car won’t make it.’ I don’t have to tell them that time is scarcer than young pussy around here, and I don’t mean time to write POETRY. I mean time to lay in bed, alone, and stare up at the ceiling and not think at all, not at all, not at all…