101 Charles Bukowski Quotes For Budding Teen Poets

Charles Bukowski was born on 16 August 1920 in Germany and went to the United States at the age of two.

His works depict the depravity of urban life and the downtrodden American society.  A documentary titled 'Bukowski: Born into this', is based on the writer's life, and his book 'Factotum' has been a film adaptation too.

Throughout his childhood, he faced various accounts of bullying. His father too punished him for small offenses. He mentioned accounts of this in his novel, 'Ham On Rye'. He enrolled in Los Angeles City College but dropped out at the beginning of World War II. He later moved to New York to become a writer. He faced various ups and downs throughout his career. It was only by the age of 35 that he began to publish. Over his career, he wrote more than 40 books of poetry, prose, and novels.

In this article, we have listed Charles Bukowski quotes on love, women, and other famous Charles Bukowski quotes from his written work. If you like this article, visit [Kerouac quotes] and Allen Ginsberg quotes.

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Charles Bukowski wrote greatly on the theme of love in his poetry, novels, and other texts. Here are some Charles Bukowski quotes about love.

1."But what can I make of love when we are all born at a different time and place only to meet through a trick of centuries and a chance three steps the left? you"

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Love'

2."God, love is more strange than numerals more strange than grass on fire more strange than the dead body of a child drowned in the bottom of a tub, we know so little, we know so much, we don't know enough."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Love'

3."We know so little, we know so much, we don't know enough."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Love'

4."To ignore life at the proper time takes special wisdom: like a Happy New Year to you all."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Love'

5."Find what you love and let it kill you."

-Charles Bukowski

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

-Charles Bukowski

7."Beauty is nothing; beauty won't stay. You don't know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it's for something else."

-Charles Bukowski

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

-Charles Bukowski. 'Love Is A Dog From Hell'

9."Look let me put it this way; with me, you're number one, and there isn't even a number two."

-Charles Bukowski

10."She's mad, but she's magic. There is no lie in her fire."

-Charles Bukowski

11."She's grinning, her eyes bright with the remainder of the world."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Love'

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

-Charles Bukowski, 'The People Look Like Flowers At Last'

13."There is 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."

-Charles Bukowski

14."I will remember the kisses our lips raw with love and how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me."

-Charles Bukowski

15."Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well."

-Charles Bukowski

16."I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love."

-Charles Bukowski, 'What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire'

17."I stopped looking for a Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn't a nightmare."

-Charles Bukowski, 'The Captain Is Out To lunch and The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship'

20."We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble at us."

-Charles Bukowski

21."I want to be with you, it is as simple as complicated as it is."

-Charles Bukowski

22."No light goes out until it goes out. Let’s fight as men, not rats. Period."

-Charles Bukowski

23."When love becomes a command, hatred can become a pleasure."

-Charles Bukowski

24."Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload."

-Charles Bukowski  

25."There is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock."

-Charles Bukowski

26."There is the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that space."

-Charles Bukowski

27."Pain arrives, Bang, and there it is, it sits on you...there's no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands how you feel and knows how to help."

-Charles Bukowski    

28."We are 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  

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

-Charles Bukowski

30."If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start...And it will be better than anything else you can imagine..."

-Charles Bukowski

31."I would be married, but I’d have no wife, I would be married to a single life."

-Charles Bukowski

Here are some Charles Bukowski quotes about his views on women and others inspired from his book titled 'On Women'. These Charles Bukowski quotes convey his interesting thoughts and feelings about women,

32."And yet women- good women -frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep."

-Charles Bukowski

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

-Charles Bukowski

34."Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

35."I was sentimental about many things: a woman's shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser..."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

36."People with no morals often consider themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love."

-Charles Bukowski, 'Women'

37.“She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn't have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.”

-Charles Bukowski, 'Factotum'

38."When I was drunk and Lydia was insane we were nearly an equal match."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

39."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...."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

40."I was naturally a loner, content to live just with a woman, eat with her...walk down the street with her. I didn't want conversation, or to go anywhere except the racetrack or the boxing matches."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

41."As usual Carmen was wearing a very tight knitted dress that fit her like a balloon fits the trapped air, maybe tighter.

-Charles Bukowski, 'Factotum'

42."She’s got red hair like lightning from heaven."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

43."I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It dint make for an interesting person...what I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and be left alone."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

44."Don't do it. Don't love me."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

45."Humanity you never had it from the beginning. That was my motto."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

46."Women: I liked the colors of their clothing; the way they walked; the cruelty in some faces...They had it over us: they planned much better and were better organized."

-Charles Bukowski, 'On Women'

47."There is always one woman to save you from another and as that woman saves you she makes ready to destroy."

-Charles Bukowski, 'Love Is A Dog From Hell'  

48."...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... "

49."...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...  "

-Charles Bukowski  

50."Men were children. You had to humor them. They could take no hurt. It was a thing every woman knew."

-Charles Bukowski  

51."People mostly, I can do without. They empty me I respect no man."

-Charles Bukowski

52."poetry is what happens when nothing else can."

-Charles Bukowski  

53."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, Factotum

54."What women wants is a reaction what man wants is a woman."

-Charles Bukowski

55."I was in love again and I was in trouble."

-Charles Bukowski

56."Every woman is different. Basically, they seem to be a combination of the best and the worst -both magic and terrible. I'm glad they exist, however."

-Charles Bukowski

57."Few beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone."

-Charles Bukowski

58."They can love you, then something turns in them. They can watch you dying in a gutter, run over by a car, and they'll spit on you."

-Charles Bukowski

59."While men were watching professional football or drinking beer or bowling, they, the women were thinking about us, concentrating, studying, deciding."

-Charles Bukowski

60."Once a woman turns against you forget it."

-Charles Bukowski

Here are some Charles Bukowski quotes from the poet and author inspired by his books and other written texts. These Charles Bukowski quotes cover his views on life, living and give an insight into his thoughts on many other topics which he penned down.

61."Life's as kind as you let it be."

-Charles Bukowski, 'Hot Water Music'

62."I wanted the whole world or nothing."

-Charles Bukowski, 'Post Office'

63."I often carry things to read so that I will not have to look at the people."

-Charles Bukowski, 'The Last Night Of The Earth Poems'

64."Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who or what we are."

-Charles Bukowski, 'What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through The Fire'  

65."Baby.'I said, 'I'm a genius but nobody knows it but me.'"

-Charles Bukowski, 'Factotum'

66."What a weary time those years were --to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability."

-Charles Bukowski, 'Ham On Rye'

67."Without literature, life is hell"

-Charles Bukowski

68."I never met another man I'd rather be. And even if that's a delusion, it's a lucky one."

-Charles Bukowski  

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

-Charles Bukowski

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

-Charles Bukowski

71."People run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water."

-Charles Bukowski

72."I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them."

-Charles Bukowski

73."Bad taste creates more millionaires than good taste."

-Charles Bukowski

74."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."

-Charles Bukowski

75."My ambition is handicapped by laziness."

-Charles Bukowski, Factotum

76."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."

-Charles Bukowski

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

-Charles Bukowski

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

-Charles Bukowski, 'The People Look Like Flowers At Last'

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

-Charles Bukowski

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

-Charles Bukowski

81."Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone."

-Charles Bukowski

82."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."

-Charles Bukowski

83."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...But I think I have known it pretty often, too often."

-Charles Bukowski, 'Tales Of Ordinary Madness'

84."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."

-Charles Bukowski, 'Tales Of Ordinary Madness'

85."The tigers have found me and I do not care."

-Charles Bukowski

86."We don't even ask happiness, just a little less pain."

-Charles Bukowski

87."We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable."

-Charles Bukowski

88."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."

-Charles Bukowski

89."The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more of you, until there was nothing left."

-Charles Bukowski

90."There are times when those eyes inside your brain stare back at you."

-Charles Bukowski

91."The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship, you don't have to waste  your time voting."

-Charles Bukowski

92."I want so much that is not here and do not know where to go."

-Charles Bukowski

93."We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting."

-Charles Bukowski

94."Unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it."

-Charles Bukowski  

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

-Charles Bukowski

96."Perhaps living through these petty days will get us ready for the dangerous ones."

-Charles Bukowski

97."We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."

-Charles Bukowski

98."Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way."

-Charles Bukowski

99."Those who escape hell never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that."

-Charles Bukowski

100."Even though I write about the human race, the further away from them, the better I feel. Two miles is great; two thousand miles is beautiful."

-Charles Bukowski  

101."There is no way I can stop writing it's a form of insanity."

-Charles Bukowski

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Charles Bukowski quotes then why not take a look at Kurt Vonnegut quotes, or [poetry quotes].