01c. 1957 ADAs a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
02c. 1957 ADI was alone with myself. And disgusting as I was it was better than being with somebody else, anybody else, all of them out there doing their pitiful little tricks and handsprings.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
03c. 1957 ADPeople just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn't understand it.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
04c. 1957 ADI like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
05c. 1957 ADI like to prowl ordinary places.I feel sorry for us all or glad for us allcaught alive togetherand awkward in that way.there's nothing better than the jokeof usthe seriousness of usthe dullness of usCharles Bukowski / quote ↗
06c. 1957 ADMy objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
07c. 1957 ADif you are going to try, go all the way.. Otherwise, don’t even start.. If you are going to try, go all the way.. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. Go all the way.. It could mean not eating for three or four days.. It could mean freezing on a park bench.. It could mean jail, derision, mockery, isolation.. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test for endurance, of how much you really want to do it.. And you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.. if you are going to try, go all the way.. there’s no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire. Do it, do it , do it.. all the way .. all the way.. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is ….Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
08c. 1957 ADDo you hate people?”“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
09c. 1957 ADSometimes 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.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
11c. 1957 ADSome people never go crazy. Me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch for 3 or 4 days. They'll find me there. It's Cherub, they'll say, and they pour wine down my throat rub my chest sprinkle me with oils. Then, I'll rise with a roar, rant, rage - curse them and the universe as I send them scattering over the lawn. I'll feel much better, sit down to toast and eggs, hum a little tune, Suddenly become as lovable as a pink overfed whale. Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
12c. 1957 ADyou boys can keep your virgins give me hot old women in high heels with asses that forgot to get old.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
13c. 1957 ADthere is always one woman to save you from another and as that woman saves you she makes ready to destroyCharles Bukowski / quote ↗
15c. 1957 ADA yet women -good women- frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Nothing was lost when they left. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
16c. 1957 ADThe time came to put Iris Duarte back on the plane.It was a morning flight which made it difficult. I wasused to rising at noon; it was a fine cure for hangoversand would add 5 years to my life. I felt no sadnesswhile driving her to L.A. International. The sex hadbeen fine; there had been laughter. I could hardlyremember a more civilized time, neither of us makingany demands, yet there had been warmth, it had notbeen without feeling, dead meat coupled with deadmeat. I detested that type of swinging, the LosAngeles, Hollywood, Bel Air, Malibu, Laguna Beachkind of sex. Strangers when you meet, strangers whenyou part—a gymnasium of bodies namelesslymasturbating each other. People with no morals oftenconsidered themselves more free, but mostly theylacked the ability to feel or to love. So they becameswingers. The dead fucking the dead. There was nogamble or humor in their game—it was corpsefucking corpse. Morals were restrictive, but they weregrounded on human experience down through thecenturies. Some morals tended to keep peopleslaves in factories, in churches and true to the State.Other morals simply made good sense. It was like agarden filled with poisoned fruit and good fruit. Youhad to know which to pick and eat, which to leavealone.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
17c. 1957 ADHer one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren't sure of was if we had any.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
18c. 1957 ADFew beautiful women were willing to indicate in public that they belonged to someone. I had known enough women to realize this. I accepted them for what they were and love came hard and very seldom. When it did it was usually for the wrong reasons. One simply became tired of holding back love and let it go because it needed some place to go. Then, usually, there was trouble.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
20c. 1957 ADThere's too much coldness in the world," I told her. "If people would only talk things out together it would help.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
21c. 1957 ADWhere did all the women come from? The supply was endless. Each one of them was individual, different. Their pussies were different, their kisses were different, their breasts were different, but no man could drink them all, there were too many of them, crossing their legs, driving men mad. What a feast!Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
22c. 1957 ADThere were no judgments to be made, yet out of necessity one had to select. Beyond good and evil was all right in theory, but to go on living one had to select: some were kinder than others, some were simply more interested in you, and sometimes the outwardly beautiful and inwardly cold were necessary. The kinder ones fucked better, really, and after you were around them a while they seemed beautiful because they were.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
23c. 1957 ADGenerally, I decided, it was better to wait, if you had any feeling for the individual. If you hated her right off, it was better to fuck her right off; if you didn't, it was better to wait, then fuck her and hate her later on.Charles Bukowski / quote ↗
24c. 1957 ADwomen were beyond me.they saw somethingdepraved.there was one waitressa little older thanI, she rather smiled,lingered when shebrought mycoffee.that was plenty for me, that wasenough.- Young in New OrleansCharles Bukowski / quote ↗
