Henry Charles Bukowski (born Heinrich Karl Bukowski; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer.
When a writer is swayed with his fame and his fortune, you can float him down the river with the turds.
nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing.
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.
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.
I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.
Learn, he says, that there will be hours, days and months ahead of feeling absolutely terrible and nothing can change that; neither new girlfriends, health professionals, changes of diet, dope, humility, or God.
That was the trouble with being a writer, that was the main trouble—leisure time, excessive leisure time. You had to wait around for the buildup until you could write and while you were waiting you went crazy, and while you were going crazy you drank and the more you drank the crazier you got.
Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them. I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere, in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.
I kept telling myself that all the women in the world weren´t whores, just mine.
I thought you were sane," I said, "but you're just as crazy as the rest of them.
it's better to be happy. . . if you can. . !!
There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.
The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it
there's no clarity. there was never meant to be clarity.
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
I went over to see Marina two or three or four times a week. I knew as long as I could see the girl I would be all right…. Soon after, I got a letter from Fay. She and the child were living in a hippie commune in New Mexico. It was a nice place, she said. Marina would be able to breathe there. She enclosed a little drawing the girl had made for me.
Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.
You know the typical crowd, Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.
I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.
Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?