An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
Charles Bukowski

Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.
Charles Bukowski

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.
Charles Bukowski

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.
Charles Bukowski

I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
Charles Bukowski

I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.
Charles Bukowski

If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.
Charles Bukowski

If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.
Charles Bukowski

It's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.
Charles Bukowski

Joan of Arc had style. Jesus had style.
Charles Bukowski


Never get out of bed before noon.
Charles Bukowski

Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.
Charles Bukowski

Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.
Charles Bukowski

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
Charles Bukowski

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.
Charles Bukowski

To do a dull thing with style-now that's what I call art.
Charles Bukowski

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.
Charles Bukowski

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
Charles Bukowski