Skye > Skye's Quotes

“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office

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

people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.

people just are not good to each other
one on one.

the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.

we are afraid.

our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.

it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.

or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone

untouched
unspoken to

watering a plant.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”
― Charles Bukowski and Carl Weissner

“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

“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,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.”
― Charles Bukowski

“those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”
― Charles Bukowski

“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

“there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

a space

and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest times
times

we will know it

we will know it
more than
ever

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and

we will wait
and
wait

in that space.”
― Charles Bukowski

“We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”
― Charles Bukowski

“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

“We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.”
― Charles Bukowski

“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

“in that drunken place
you would
like to hand your heart to her
and say
touch it
but then
give it back.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“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

“there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?”
― Charles Bukowski

“There are times when those eyes inside your brain stare back at you.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“She's mad, but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready.”
― Charles Bukowski

“The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I want so much that is not here and do not know
where to go.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

“I'm going, she said. I love you but you're
crazy, you're doomed.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
― Charles Bukowski

“she is no longer
the beautiful woman
she was. she sends
photos of herself
sitting upon a rock
by the ocean
alone and damned.
I could have had
her once. I wonder
if she thinks I
could have
saved her?”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell

“Oh, I don’t mean you’re handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes - they’re beautiful. They’re wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“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, Tales of Ordinary Madness

“you've got to burn
straight up and down
and then maybe sidewise
for a while
and have your guts
scrambled by a
bully
and the demonic
ladies,
you've got to run
along the edge of
madness
teetering,
you've got to starve
like a winter
alleycat,
you've go to live
with the imbecility
of at least a dozen
cities,
then maybe
maybe
maybe
you might know
where you are
for a tiny
blinking
moment.”
― Charles Bukowski, Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems

“your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn't help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over the river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell