25 phrases by Charles Bukowski to know the work of this cursed poet

When you fail at poetry, you fail at life. And when you fail in life, you were never born.

The rigidity of our society silences a man’s heart. And when you silence a man’s heart, you ultimately leave him with only a penis.

To me, nudity is a joke. I don’t think naked people are attractive at all.

She is wild but docile.

Which would be a double failure: a person’s failure in poetry and a person’s failure in life.

We consume animals and then one of us consumes the other, my love.

If you try to write as others have written, don’t.

I like my women fully dressed. I like to imagine what might be down there.

It’s all too easy to look modern while you’re the biggest idiot ever born.

Any problem you have with me is yours.

There’s a bluebird in my chest that wants to get out, but I’m too hard on him, I say, stay there, I won’t let anyone see you.

What you were won’t happen again.

We were born into a civilization stunned by overwhelming mediocrity.

This stolen madness that I don’t wish on anyone but myself, amen.

I would rather die than cry.

Waiting for death like a cat about to jump into bed.

Sometimes I am bitter, but almost always the taste was sweet. Turns out I was afraid to say. It’s like when your wife says, “Tell me you love me,” and you can’t.

We must bring our own light to the darkness. Nobody will do it for us.

Even the crazy cry.

If you have the capacity to love, love yourself first, but always be alert to the possibility of total defeat.

Only once in a while do you find someone with a presence and electricity that matches yours on the spot.

Life is being alone, death is being alone.

It’s all so comfortable – this making love, this sleeping together, the soft delicacy…

Women are so hot, they remind me of buttered toast with the butter melted on it.

Pain is the joy of knowing the less generous truth that comes unannounced.