Charles Bukowski

I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was -- with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what -- I said, "Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us.

for meobedience to another is the decayof self

I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.

sometimes all we need to be able to continue aloneare the deadrattling the wallsthat close us in.

darkness falls upon Humanityand faces become terriblethingsthat wanted more than therewas.all our days are marked withunexpectedaffronts - somedisastrous, othersless sobut the process iswearing andcontinuous.attrition rules.most givewayleavingempty spaceswhere people shouldbe.and nowas we ready to self-destructthere is very little left tokillwhich makes the tragedyless and moremuch muchmore.

there's no clarity.there was never meant to be clarity.

People need me. I fill them. If they can't see me for a while they get desperate, they get sick. But if I see them too often I get sick. It's hard to feed without getting fed.

being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.

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

I've never been lonely. I've been in a room -- I've felt suicidal. I've been depressed. I've felt awful -- awful beyond all -- but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me...or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I've never been bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude. It's being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I'll quote Ibsen, "The strongest men are the most alone." I've never thought, "Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I'll feel good." No, that won't help. 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. I hid in bars, because I didn't want to hide in factories. 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. Let's drink more wine!

I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.

She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something.

I could never acceptlife as it was,I could never gobbledown all itspoisonsbu there were parts,tenuous magic partsopen for theasking.

Hey, Hank, I notice all the women around your place lately ... good looking stuff; you're doing all right.""Sam," I say, "that's not true; I am one of God's most lonely men.

Love is for real men.

Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it.

now it__ computers and more computersand soon everybody will have one,3-year-olds will have computersand everybody will know everythingabout everybody elselong before they meet them.nobody will want to meet anybodyelse ever againand everybody will bea recluselike I am now.