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"39 Charles Bukowski Quotes & Sayings

      German     /     View profile
Born: August 16, 1920 Died: March 9, 1994 | Poet | Novelist |

I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.

Life Married Single Wife
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It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.
Being Human Love Possible
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Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

Ability Genius Might Profound
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Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.
Bad Creates Good Many
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Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.

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

Begin Grandiose Man Politics
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If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.

Got Know Left Lose
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An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

Artist Hard Intellectual Says
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We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.

Back Bar Bunch Dice
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There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

Always Depends Finds First
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If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.

Friends Jail Know Sentence
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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.

Between Democracy Dictatorship Difference
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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.

Basically Because Feel Free
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There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts.

Bodies Course Crowd Cuts
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The female loves to play man against man. And if she is in a position to do it, there is not one who will resist.
Against Female Loves Man
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The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation.

Betrayal Exploration Feels Female
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When I write, when I'm going hot, I don't want to write more than four hours in a row. After that, you're pushing it.

After Going Hot Hours
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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.

Alone Circus Die Love
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I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like to be shaped by society.

Society Shaped Rules Bum
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Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, 'Don't try.' That fits the writing, too. I don't try; I just type.

Asked Fits Life Once
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The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.
Against Fear Humor Thing
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In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

Photograph Words Work Writer
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My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the 'light' and never mentioned the other, then as an artist, I would be a liar.

Artist Continually Liar Life
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Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I'll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master... it's when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

BecausCaught Either Fail Master
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When I say that basically writing is a hard hustle, I don't mean that it is a bad life, if one can get away with it. It's the miracle of miracles to make a living by the typer.

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

Caught Disease Glad Sometimes
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It's when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order to simply make a poem, that you fail.

Begin Fail Lie Poem
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I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

Bad Cardboard Chewing Felt
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When everything works best, it's not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It's when you're mad with it, it's when it's stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It's when there's no hope but that.

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

Alive Definite Largely Magic
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My love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough, as the same cat crouches.
Cat Love Moment Quiet
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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.

Away Beautiful Better Feel
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I do not like the human race. I don't like their heads, I don't like their faces, I don't like their feet, I don't like their conversations, I don't like their hairdos, I don't like their automobiles.

Automobiles Conversations Faces Feet
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You can do without a woman but not a typewriter.
Typewriter Without Woman You
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We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Death Laugh Live Lives
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A cat is only itself, representative of the strong forces of life that won't let go.

Strong Cat Forces Itself
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Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

Life Literature Those Writing
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Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.
Almost Born Buried Genius
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Charles Bukowski Quotes & Sayings