Drew Wilson

40 Of The Best Bukowski Quotes To Read During Your Existential Crisis

Bukowski didn't know the meaning of life either. He just didn't know it a little more eloquently than the rest of us. 
Heidi Priebe
June 3, 2016
“Pain arrives, BANG, and there it is, it sits on you. It’s real. And to anybody watching, you look foolish. Like you’ve suddenly become an idiot. There’s no cure for it unless you know somebody who understands how you feel, and knows how to help.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Pain, Understanding Pain, Feeling, How You Feel
“People run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water.”
— Charles Bukowski, The Roominghouse Madrigals
Tagged: Irony, Avoidance, Self-Deceit
“The difference between life and art is art is more bearable.”
— Charles Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, American Author
Tagged: Art, Life, Healing, expression
“I wasn't much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
— Charles Bukowski, Post Office
Tagged: Extremes, ENFP, ENTP, Having It All, Desire, Lust, Lust For Life, Living Fully, Wanting Someone You Can't Have
“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
Tagged: Love, Illness, Passion
“Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Life, Death, Filling The Void, Distraction, Existentialism, Nihilism
“Life's as kind as you let it be.”
— Charles Bukowski, Hot Water Music
Tagged: Life, Perspective, kindness, Optimism
“Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter.”
— Charles Bukowski, Hot Water Music
Tagged: Love, Chance, People, Ego, Love And The Ego
“great writers are indecent people 
they live unfairly 
saving the best part for paper. 

 good human beings save the world 
so that bastards like me can keep creating art.”
— Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers At Last
Tagged: Writing, Writers, Saving The World, Morality, Good People, Bad People, Artists, Creatives, Creativity
“I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Love, Being In Love, Relationships, Perspective, Reality
“People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.”
— Charles Bukowski, The Last Night Of The Earth Poems
Tagged: Life, Existentialism, People, The Human Condition, Finding Meaning
“you invented me 
and I invented you 
and that's why we don't 
get along 
on this bed 
any longer.”
— Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell
Tagged: Love, Illusion, Idealising Someone, Idealistic Love, Relationships, Disillusionment
“People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be.”
— Charles Bukowski, Factotum
Tagged: Love, Success, Self-Concept, Human Nature
“regret is mostly caused by not having 
done anything.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Regret, Life, Living Fully, Making Mistakes
“Something else is hurting you - that’s why you need pot or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can’t think.”
— Charles Bukowski, Tales Of Ordinary Madness
Tagged: Pain, Masking Pain, Addiction, Struggle, Escapism
“Stop insisting on clearing your head — clear your fucking heart instead.”
— Charles Bukowski, Selected Letters Vol. 4(1987-1994)
Tagged: Clearing Your Head, Clearing Your Heart, Clarity, Analyzing, Reflection, Introspection
“Nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving.”
— Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way
Tagged: Independence, Success, Saving Yourself, Self-improvement
“if it doesn't come bursting out of you 
in spite of everything, 
don't do it.”
— Charles Bukowski, So You Want To Be A Writer
Tagged: Writing, Passion, Compulsion
“You have to die a few times before you can really 
live.”
— Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers At Last
Tagged: Life, Existentialism, Fully Experiencing Life, Embracing Life, Metaphorical Death
“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't.”
— Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
Tagged: Death, Life, The Human Condition, Living, Loving Each Other
“the area dividing the brain and the soul 
is affected in many ways by 
experience – 
some lose all mind and become soul: 
insane. 
some lose all soul and become mind: 
intellectual. 
some lose both and become: 
accepted.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Insanity, Passion, Soul, Spirit, Mind, The Human Condition
“it has been a beautiful
fight

still
is.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Poetry, Fight, Struggle, Life
“Kissing is more intimate than fucking.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Relationships, Kissing, Sex, Fucking, Intimacy, Closeness
““Potential," I said, "doesn't mean a thing. You've got to do it. Almost every baby in a crib has more potential than I have.””
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Potential, Taking Action, The Human Condition, Making Change
“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves.”
— Charles Bukowski, Ham On Rye
Tagged: Apathy, The Human Condition, Existentialism, Choices, Angsty Poetry
“A good writer knew when not to write.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Writing, Good Writers, Timing, Passion
“I'm tired of waiting to die. Let's go out.”
— Charles Bukowski, Hot Water Music
Tagged: Life, Death, Partying, Celebrating, Nihilism
“the courage it took to get out of bed each 
morning 
to face the same things 
over and over 
was 
enormous.”
— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Tagged: Life, Apathy, Depression, The Daily Grind
“Human relationships were strange. I mean, you were with one person a while, eating and sleeping and living with them, loving them, talking to them, going places together, and then it stopped.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Relationships, Dating, Love, Break Up
“I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.”
— Charles Bukowski, Women
Tagged: Alone, Loneliness, Being Single, Solitude, Relationships