Aboutour argument tonight whatever it wasaboutand no matter how unhappy it made usfeelremember that there is acatsomewhereadjusting to the space of itself with a delightful wonderment ofeasiness.in other words magic persists without USNO matter what we do against it.

— Charles Bukowski

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 lie 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.

— Charles Bukowski

A good writer knew when not to write. Anybody could type. Not that I was a good typist also I couldn't spell, and I didn't know grammar. But I knew when not to write. It was like fucking. You had to rest the godhead now and then.

— Charles Bukowski

A life can change in a tenth of second. Or sometimes it can take70years.

— Charles Bukowski

All people start to come apart finally and there it is:just empty ashtrays in a roomer wisps of hair on a combine the dissolving moonlight.

— Charles Bukowski

All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this fix. You want to test me. Suppose I test You? Suppose I say that You are not there? You've given me a supreme test with my parents and with these boils. I think that I have passed Your test. I am tougher than You. If You come down here right now, I will spit into Your face, if You have a face. And do You shit? The priest never answered that question. He told us not to doubt. Doubt what? I think that You have been picking on me too much, so I am asking You to come down here so I can put You to the test! I waited. Nothing. I waited for God. I waited and waited. Furthermore, I believe I slept.

— Charles Bukowski

All theorieslike cliches shot to hell, all these small faces looking up beautiful and believing;I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but believe is graveyard. We have narrowed it down tithe butcher knife and the mockingbird wish us luck.

— Charles Bukowski

All we do is sleep, and eat and lie around and make love. We're like slugs. Slug-love, I call it.

— Charles Bukowski

Alone with everybody the flesh covers the bone, and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and them men drink too much and nobody finds the one, but they keep looking crawling in and out of beds. Flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh. There's no chance at all:we are all trapped by a singular fate. Nobody ever finds the one. The city dumps fill the junkyards fill the mad houses fill the hospitals fill the graveyards fill nothing else fills.

— Charles Bukowski

And beware those who only take instructions from theretofore they have failed completely to live their own lives.

— Charles Bukowski