Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Charles Bukowski Quotes
Job SecurityRealismMindsetSocial HierarchyAnxiety Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: 'Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?' They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.
Simple PleasuresNostalgiaHardship I used to live on one candy bar a day - it cost a nickel. I always remember the candy bar was called Payday. That was my payday. And that candy bar tasted so good, at night I would take one bite, and it was so beautiful.
WritingEnduranceTimelessnessInner Conflict Writers have to put up with this editor thing; it is ageless and eternal and wrong.
StereotypesPrejudiceRepresentationDouble Standards If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many 'bads' - bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even 'bad' white males. Only, when you write about 'bad' white males, they don't complain about it. And need I say that there are 'good' blacks, 'good' homosexuals and 'good' women?
HistoryRecklessnessSquanderingHuman Folly We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.
Living FullyCourageDefiancePurpose We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
WritingProductivityFocusSelf-Discipline 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.
Self-AwarenessInner StruggleResilience If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.
ChallengeVulnerabilityPreparednessInevitabilityConsequence 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.
Non-conformityIndividualityFreedom 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.
MortalityLoveTrivialityHumanity 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.
ReflectionSelf-AwarenessResilienceAcceptancePerseverance I don't write so much now. I'm getting on 33, pot belly and creeping dementia.
InfluenceVisionary IdeasOriginalityTimelessnessCultural Impact Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.
ReadingLearningKnowledge Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.
IndividualityStrengthResilienceLife A cat is only itself, representative of the strong forces of life that won't let go.
Creativity I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don't even know I'm working on. It's a free lunch. A free dinner. I don't know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.
NonconformityAuthenticityStruggleIndividuality I don't like the clean-shaven boy with the necktie and the good job. I like desperate men, men with broken teeth and broken minds and broken ways. They interest me. They are full of surprises and explosions.
SimplicityDistanceAcceptanceClarityVulnerability It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.
FaithCreativityIntuitionResilienceIdentity I have no definite talent or trade, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic.
DemocracyDictatorshipCivic ResponsibilityPower DynamicsAuthority 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.
TalentInsightSimplicityClarityCommunication Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.
CreativityObservationWritingArtExpression In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.
FreedomInspirationWell-being 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.
LifePurposeAccomplishmentSelf-WorthFulfillment To not to have entirely wasted one's life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.
DiscontentAntipathyCritique of Physical Appearance and Behavior 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.
OriginalityClichésCreativityAuthenticity When I worked on a magazine, I learned that there are many, many writers writing that can't write at all; and they keep on writing all the cliches and bromides and 1890 plots, and poems about Spring and poems about Love, and poems they think are modern because they are done in slang or staccato style, or written with all the 'i's' small.
QuantityLongevityHumor The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you'll live 10 times longer than if you have 10. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever. It's truly ridiculous.
LoyaltyLove 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.
TruthFearEducationEmpathy Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.
EnvyRelationshipHidden StrugglesHuman Nature Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell.
CatsComfortSerenitySaviors Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you'll feel better because they know that everything is just as it is. There's nothing to get excited about. They just know. They're saviours.
LoveNaturePeaceDangerContrast My love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment on the bough, as the same cat crouches.
CreativityAuthenticityPassionIntuitionMastery 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.
CommunicationSimplicityArtistryIntellect An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
AuthenticityIntegritySelf-DeceptionFailure It's when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order to simply make a poem, that you fail.
MadnessLiving LifeConformityFreedomIndividuality Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.
Authenticity My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don't want it smoothed out.
PassionDedicationCommitmentPurpose 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.
DeceptionManipulationGender Dynamics 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.