“People diminish me; the longer I sit and listen to them, the more empty I feel but I don’t get the idea that they feel empty, I feel that they enjoy the sound from their mouths.”

“I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time.”

“Stop insisting on clearing your head — clear your f**king heart instead.”

“Find what you love and let it kill you.”

“Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase; then your mind might be free.”

“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.”

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.

“Love needs too much help.Hate takes care of itself.”

“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.”

“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.”

His pen was his scalpel, dissecting the mundane and the profound with equal gusto. A controversial figure? Absolutely. A misanthropic womanizer with a penchant for booze and cigarettes? Guilty as charged. But boring? Never!

Get ready for Charles Bukowski's hard-hitting words: Quotes that are as brutally honest and hilariously dark as the man himself.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

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