4077365
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She was desperate and she was choosey at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn't have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.
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Charles Bukowski |
0b4a52c
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Style is the answer to everything. A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art Bullfighting can be an art Boxing can be an art Loving can be an art Opening a can of sardines can be an art Not many have style Not many can keep style I have seen dogs with more style than men, although not many dogs have..
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life
style
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Charles Bukowski |
39c0467
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And yet women-good women--frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep.
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Charles Bukowski |
a81bb06
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there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad. then I put him back, but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't
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secret
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Charles Bukowski |
30b255e
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There are times when those eyes inside your brain stare back at you.
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Charles Bukowski |
46b1e27
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I sit here drunk now. I am a series of small victories and large defeats and I am as amazed as any other that I have gotten from there to here without committing murder or being murdered; without having ended up in the madhouse. as I drink alone again tonight my soul despite all the past agony thanks all the gods who were not there for me then.
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Charles Bukowski |
311c8ec
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I drive around the streets an inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality and possible love.
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weep
sentimentality
weeping
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Charles Bukowski |
336f3d5
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How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?
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Charles Bukowski |
2f927a5
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I want so much that is not here and do not know where to go.
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Charles Bukowski |
ddf6725
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I'm going, she said. I love you but you're crazy, you're doomed.
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Charles Bukowski |
ad9f42b
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The Laughing Heart your life is your life don't let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can't beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it wh..
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Charles Bukowski |
154dbdd
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Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with their lives and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn't so.
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Charles Bukowski |
2dc62e6
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I want to let her know though that all the nights sleeping beside her even the useless arguments were things ever splendid and the hard words I ever feared to say can now be said:
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Charles Bukowski |
6e180f5
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you son of a bitch, she said, I am to build a meaningful relationship. you can't build it with a hammer, he said.
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Charles Bukowski |
139c1f3
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I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a graveyard.
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perseverance
sorrow
life
weeping
pessimism
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Charles Bukowski |
7d0a540
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she is no longer the beautiful woman she was. she sends photos of herself sitting upon a rock by the ocean alone and damned. I could have had her once. I wonder if she thinks I could have saved her?
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Charles Bukowski |
dec6330
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each man's hell is in a different place:
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charles bukowski |
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It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun
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inspirational
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Charles Bukowski |
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In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.
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Charles Bukowski |
025a5bb
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Oh, I don't mean you're handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes - they're beautiful. They're wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire.
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handsome
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Charles Bukowski |
d224b0c
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people run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water.
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Charles Bukowski |
5f64e05
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Beauty is nothing, beauty won't stay. You don't know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it's for something else.
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Charles Bukowski |
5d5b526
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you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment.
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Charles Bukowski |
7dbbd52
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if you get married they think you're finished
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Charles Bukowski |
7fa986a
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The fuckers. There, I feel better. God-damned human race. There, I feel better.
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Charles Bukowski |
fe7e276
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I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One ..
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nihilism
hedonism
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Charles Bukowski |
e37e355
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in this land some of us fuck more than we die but most of us die better than we fuck
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fuck
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Charles Bukowski |
5ee41e0
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I said goodbye again sucking up all that was left of her into the little that was left of me. I said, 'don't look for me again. fuck it. we are all lost. goodbye, goodbye.
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Charles Bukowski |
a3f2021
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so it's always a process of letting go, one way or another
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Charles Bukowski |
f2c9684
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Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?
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autobiographical-quote
poem
poetry
life
inspirational
charles-bukowski
poetry-life-quote
posthumous-modern-writer
journalist
writer-quotes
satirical
reflection
poetry-quotes
poet
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Charles Bukowski |
1428b40
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it was like any other relationship, there was jealousy on both sides, there were split-ups and reconciliations. there were also fragmented moments of great peace and beauty. I often tried to get away from her and she tied to get away from me but it was difficult: Cupid, in his strange way, was really there.
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Charles Bukowski |
ae10bd4
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nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls
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Charles Bukowski |
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Human relationships didn't work anyhow. Only the first two weeks had any zing, then the participants lost their interest. Masks dropped away and real people began to appear: cranks, imbeciles, the demented, the vengeful, sadists, killers. Modern society had created its own kind and they feasted on each other. It was a duel to the death--in a cesspool.
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Charles Bukowski |
6394f31
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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. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.
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Charles Bukowski |
016c254
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your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn't help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over the river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you.
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Charles Bukowski |
4f14999
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my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile! why don't you ever smile?"
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motherhood
pain
love
facade
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Charles Bukowski |
1f39723
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I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.
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poverty
rich
poor
mental-illness
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Charles Bukowski |
3274683
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I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.
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injustice
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Charles Bukowski |
924f2dd
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one can never be sure whether it's good poetry or bad acid
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Charles Bukowski |
ff7267b
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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. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pur whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want t..
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charles bukowski |
a9c4503
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whiskey makes the heart beat faster but it sure doesn't help the mind and isn't it funny how you can ache just from the deadly drone of existence?
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Charles Bukowski |
58265d4
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Yes Yes when God created love he didn't help most when God created dogs He didn't help dogs when God created plants that was average when God created hate we had a standard utility when God created me He created me when God created the monkey He was asleep when He created the giraffe He was drunk when He created narcotics He was high and when He created suicide He was low when He created you lying in bed He knew what He was doing ..
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passion
women
humor
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Charles Bukowski |
3e1e76d
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Learn, he says, that there will be hours, days and months ahead of feeling absolutely terrible and nothing can change that; neither new
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Charles Bukowski |
ee4b9fa
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and when love came to us twice and lied to us twice we decided to never love again that was fair fair to us and fair to love itself. we ask for no mercy or no miracles; we are strong enough to live and to die and to kill flies, attend the boxing matches, go to the racetrack, live on luck and skill, get alone, get alone often, and if you can't sleep alone be careful of the words you speak in your sleep; and ask for no mercy ..
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Charles Bukowski |