Poetry Quotes by Charles Bukowski

“I wait on my fix: I am a poetry junkie.”

— Charles Bukowski

“the gods seldom give but so quickly take.”

— Charles Bukowski

“sometimes it's hard to know what to do.”

— Charles Bukowski

I'm only interested in poetry.

— Charles Bukowski

“the gods play no favorites.”

— Charles Bukowski

I am a poem. There is no way out.

— Charles Bukowski

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.

— Charles Bukowski

“I run with the hunted.”

— Charles Bukowski

“regret is mostly caused by not having done anything.”

— Charles Bukowski

“it's so easy to be a poet and so hard to be a man.”

— Charles Bukowski

“one doesn't even think of the liver and if the liver doesn't think of us, that's fine.”

— Charles Bukowski

“the worst thing," he told me, "is bitterness, people end up so bitter.”

— Charles Bukowski

Bad poetry is caused by people who sit down and think, Now I am going to write a Poem.

— Charles Bukowski

Careful poetry and careful people live only long enough to die safely.

— Charles Bukowski

Figuring the average poet starts at 16, I am 23.

— Charles Bukowski

“ah, christ, what a CREW: more poetry, always more POETRY”

— Charles Bukowski

People were usually much better in their letters than in reality. They were much like poets in this way.

— Charles Bukowski

“I think good poetry should startle, shatter and, yes, entertain while getting as close to the truth as possible. I can get…

— Charles Bukowski

Some of my poems indicate that I am writing while living alone after a split with a woman, and I've had many…

— Charles Bukowski

It's hot tonight and half the neighborhood is drunk. the other half is dead. if I have any advice about writing poetry…

— Charles Bukowski

“(I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm bringing the dead back to life, marvelous so marvelous like eating cold olives at 3…

— Charles Bukowski

“also, the oldest notion still in vogue is that if you can’t understand a poem then it almost certainly is a good…

— Charles Bukowski

“she slammed the door and was gone. I looked at the closed door and at the doorknob and strangely I didn't feel…

— Charles Bukowski

“I didn't know who to believe but one thing I do know: when a man is living many claim relationships that are…

— Charles Bukowski

“What is your advice to young writers?" "Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes." "What is your advice to older writers?" "If…

— Charles Bukowski

“dear J: I feel lucky that I didn’t fuck you the first time we met in Houston, but luckier that I didn’t…

— Charles Bukowski

“when you're young a pair of female high-heeled shoes just sitting alone in the closet can fire your bones; when you're old…

— Charles Bukowski

LSD, yeah, the big parade – everybody's doin' it now. Take LSD, then you are a poet, an intellectual. What a sick…

— Charles Bukowski

“it is so dark now with the sadness of people they were tricked, they were taught to expect the ultimate when nothing…

— Charles Bukowski

I don't think I have written a poem when I was completely sober. But I have written a few good ones or…

— Charles Bukowski

“sometimes when everything seems at its worst when all conspires and gnaws and the hours, days, weeks years seem wasted – stretched…

— Charles Bukowski

“most of these American poets pushing and hustling their talents playing at greatness. poet (?): that word needs re- defining. when I…

— Charles Bukowski

“I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny they are small, and the…

— Charles Bukowski

Christmas poem to a man in jail hello Bill Abbott: I appreciate your passing around my books in jail there, my poems…

— Charles Bukowski

“when we were kids laying around the lawn on our bellies we often talked about how we'd like to die and we…

— Charles Bukowski

“The dead do not need aspirin or sorrow, I suppose. but they might need rain. not shoes but a place to walk.…

— Charles Bukowski

“Alone Again" I think of each of them living somewhere else sitting somewhere else standing somewhere else sleeping somewhere else or maybe…

— Charles Bukowski

“The Blue Bird from The Last Night of the Earth Poems there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out…

— Charles Bukowski

“The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful.…

— Charles Bukowski

I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession…

— Charles Bukowski