77 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Life & Love (HAPPINESS)

Top 10 Most Famous Charles Bukowski Quotes (BEST)

“We’re all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.”
Charles Bukowski

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence. — The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of **confidence**.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

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

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
Charles Bukowski

Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way. — Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.

If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence. — If you want to know who your **friends** are, get yourself a jail sentence.

People are strange they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice. — People are strange: they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.

2 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Working a 9-to-5 Job

“How the hell could a person enjoy being awakened at 6:30AM, by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
Charles Bukowski

The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn’t interest you. — The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your **life** away to a function that doesn’t interest you.

7 Charles Bukowski Quotes About Life

I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. — I was a man who thrived on **solitude**; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me.

If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose. — If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.

Dogs and angels are not very far apart. — **Dogs** and **angels** are not very far apart.

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them. — The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.

Anything is a waste of time unless you are fcking well or creating well or getting well or looming toward a kind of phantom-love-happiness. — Anything is a waste of **time** unless you are f*cking well or creating well or getting well or looming toward a kind of phantom-love-**happiness**.

The tigers have found me and I do not care.

4 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Writing and Being a Writer

He asked, What makes a man a writer Well, I said, it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge. — He asked, What makes a man a writer? Well, I said, it’s simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.

It was best to stay away from other writers and just do your work…

2 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Going All-in

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
Charles Bukowski

7 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Drinking

“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
Charles Bukowski

We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us.

My beer drunk soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees of the world. — My beer drunk soul is sadder than all the dead **Christmas** trees of the world.

I’m just an alcoholic who became a writer so that I would be able to stay in bed until noon.

There isn’t a better way to drink than at a small table over a white tablecloth with a good-looking woman.

When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.

We really had nothing to do but drink wine and make love. — We really had nothing to do but drink **wine** and make love.

9 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Love and Relationship

“Human relationships were strange. I mean, you were with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stopped. Then there was a short period when you weren’t with anybody, then another woman arrived, and you ate with her and f*cked her, and it all seemed so normal, as if you had been waiting just for her and she had been waiting for you. I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.”
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.

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

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.

My 6 foot goddess makes me laugh the laughter of the mutilated who still need love. — My 6 foot goddess makes me **laugh** the laughter of the mutilated who still need love.

If you get married they think you’re finished and if you are without a woman they think you’re incomplete.

And if you have the ability to love, love yourself first.

There is always one woman to save you from another.

She was always thinking of sex, she carried it around with her like something in a paper bag.

8 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Death

“Hello, Death. But I’ve had almost 6 decades. I’ve given you so many clean shots at me what I should have been yours long ago. I want to be buried near the racetrack… where I can hear the stretch run.”
Charles Bukowski

The best often die by their own hand just to get away, and those left behind can never quite understand why anybody would ever want to get away from them.

You have to die a few times before you can really live.

In this land some of us fck more than we die but most of us die better than we fck. — In this land some of us f*ck more than we die but most of us die better than we f*ck.

They disgust me, the way they wait for death with as much passion as a traffic signal. — They disgust me, the way they wait for death with as much **passion** as a traffic signal.

When I think of myself dead, I think of someone making love to you when I’m not around.

Death comes slowly like ants to a fallen fig.

Cheer up. Maybe you’ll be famous after you’re dead.

8 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Loneliness and Sadness

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
Charles Bukowski