Quotes by Bukowski

cirerita

cirerita

Founding member
I know, I know, the net is already full of them, but let's put here those kool or innaresting quotes by B that we have always -secretly- loved. :rolleyes:

ok, let's open fire:
[People] PLAY AT SOUL, at being IN, bop, boot, beard, beret, hip, pop, anything. Long hair, short skirts, sandals, anything, psychedelic parties, paintings, music, psychedelic grapefruit, psychedelic guerilla front, pop cups, shades, bikes, yogi, psyche light-sounds, disco, girls are Richards, fuzz now Soap, Kid Goldstein the super pop new boy, The Jefferson Airplane, Hell?s Angels, anything, any damn thing to give them identity, to give them a fa?ade of Being to Cover the Horrible Hole. [?] Don?t think! Freak-in. Freak-out. Lights. LSD. Leary. Guitars. Love. MAKE LOVE! They screw each other like dry rocks rubbing together. March for Peace. March for the Negro. Burn your draft card.
Click to expand...
in Thomas, John, ?This Floundering Old Bastard Is the Best Damn Poet in Town? Los Angeles Free Press vol. 4, no. 9 (March 1967): 12-13.
Reprinted in Sunlight Here I Am, 26.
 
Bukfan

Bukfan

"The law is wrong; I am right"
"They screw each other like dry rocks rubbing together". - LOL, I like that sentence!

Here's another one:

"People, mostly, I can do without. They don't fill me, they emty me. I respect no man. I have a problem that way...I'm lying, but believe me, it's true.

- "Tough Guys Write Poetry", Sean Penn, Interwiev, Vol. XVII, No. 19, Sept. 1987, pp. 94-98.
- Reprinted in "Sunlight Here I Am", page 217.
 
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reasonknot

reasonknot

Founding member
quote from a letter to locklin

"if i knew what i were doing i could no longer do it."

anyhow.you've got me back to the books.favorite,favorite...
 
G

grayxray

more like slightly wet rocks rubbing together, that is if you sweat. Buk is great, Buk is great
 
poptop

poptop

Buk on Cats

Having a bunch of cats around is good. If
you're feeling bad, you just look at the cats,
you'll feel better, because they know that
everything is, just as it is. There's nothing
to get excited about. They just know. They're
saviors. The more cats you have, the longer
you live. If you have a hundred cats, you'll
live ten times longer than if you have ten.
Someday this will be discovered, and people
will have a thousand cats and live forever.
It's truly ridiculous.
 
R

ribaij

we both knew him


I got up, went in, pulled down my
pants, sat down, thinking, fucking
often has nothing to do with being
?lovers? and fucking seldom has much
to do with literature and literature
has nothing to do with fucking except
to write about it when more important
things give way, and most literature
is pretty fucking bad.

Charles Bukowski
Excerpt from the poem ?we both knew him?
Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)
 
HenryChinaski

HenryChinaski

Founding member
"there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late"

-Charles Bukowski
"Oh Yes"
Taken from the poetry collection War All The Time
 
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Bukfan

Bukfan

"The law is wrong; I am right"
Good choice, Henry! - It's one of my favourite poems...
 
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poptop

poptop

All the Assholes in the World and Mine

A poor devil dressed in green came in
and shaved my ass. Such terrible jobs
in the world! There was one job I had
missed.
 
d gray

d gray

tried to do his best but could not
Founding member
"this whole place is diseased with the presence of everybody but myself."

"the more i think about people the less i want to think about them."

"you see my point...people are pointless."

"you're all flat pancake mamas with syrup spilled over your heads."
 
R

ribaij

a couple of lines:

- -- --- ---- -----
Most men don't die. There is nothing that has lived; there
is nothing to die.
Excerpt from a letter to S.M. November 1961
Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 (2001)

----- ---- --- -- -
we are hardly ever
as strong
as that which we
create.
Excerpt from "the curse"
Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005)

- -- --- ---- -----
observation put to action
is the essence
of art.
Excerpt from "the Nile runs north"
Open All Night: New Poems (2000)

----- ---- --- -- -
there is always somebody in the other room
who wonders what you are doing
there without them.
Excerpt from "the other room"
Open All Night: New Poems (2000)
 
Bukfan

Bukfan

"The law is wrong; I am right"
Here's one of my all time favourites:

"Hospitals and jails and whores; these are the universities of life. I've got several degrees. Call me Mr."

- From "Confessions of a man insane enough to live with beasts" in
"South of no north", page 171.
 
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seasofbeer

seasofbeer

"Death was so dull. That was the worst thing about death. It was dull. Once it happened there wasn't anything you could do. You couldn't play tennis with it or turn it into a box of bonbons. It was there like a flat tire was there. Death was stupid.

-From Death of the Father 1, out of Hot Water Music.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
"This is the modern age. Atom bombs are hanging on trees like grapefruits. I like to say what I have to say and get out."

"California boys are laid back, in the woodwork. They don't come rushing out, they cool it and figure their next move. Less panic. And under all this, they have the ability to kill. But they don't blow a lot of smoke first."
 
the only good poet

the only good poet

One retreat after another without peace.
"I don't like people. i don't even like myself. There must be something wrong with me." commented made to an interviewer from the L.A. times.



"The brits are laid back, in the woodwork. They don't come rushing out, they cool it and figure their next move. Less panic. And under all this, they have the ability to kill. But they don't blow a lot of smoke first."


hey, mjp

;)
 
G

grayxray

Women are exploiters of men, dream killers and everything else.
 
pepe c

pepe c

hi all, this is my first post ...

There are two quotes that i0ve always liked by buk. But I'm not sure if they are verbatim, nor what book i read them in. on top of that, i've read half is stuff translated into spanish.

"never trust a man with a well-groomed mustache"

and

"never trust a man with a clean kitchen"
 
pepe c

pepe c

pues gracias cirerita. coming from a buk fan in spain, but originally from the states. lots of buk fans here by the way. and in my opinion he's just as funny in spanish
 
cirerita

cirerita

Founding member
this is not by B, but a quote by his friend Locklin.

The unevenness of his published work leaves Bukowski vulnerable to the critic with an axe to grind, who may select exclusively from the second-rate or from what he needs to prove his thesis. But such critics are easily refuted by anyone who has read along with Bukowski over the years,
Click to expand...
Locklin, A Sure Bet, 29.


It reminds me of Harrison's book. He chose 4 poems to prove B was championing the working class people miseries, but it's easy to prove that was not the case. I'm not gonna write a book about that, though ;)
 
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