"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. "
"Do you hate people? I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around."
"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
"You have to die a few times before you can really
live."
"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way."
"Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone."
"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way."
"what matters most is how well you walk through the fire"
"If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose"
"I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of."
"There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you."
"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."
"People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love."
"I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love."
"We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes"
"Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing."
"Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well."
"you boys can keep your virgins
give me hot old women in high heels
with asses that forgot to get old. "
"Anything is a waste of time unless you are fucking well or creating well or getting well or looming toward a kind of phantom-love-happiness."
"dogs and angels are not
very far apart"
"Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss."
"This is very important -- to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you're gonna lose everything...just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That's why they're all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful."
"Great art is horseshit, buy tacos."
"Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink."
i pretty much and pasted every bukowski quote from goodreads, but thats because they are all good
