1,615 Quotes by Charles Bukowski

I have no definite talent or trade, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many 'bads' - bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even 'bad' white males. Only, when you write about 'bad' white males, they don't complain about it. And need I say that there are 'good' blacks, 'good' homosexuals and 'good' women?

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: 'Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?' They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.

Sometimes I've called writing a disease. If so, I'm glad that it caught me.

My love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough, as the same cat crouches.