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I Couldn't Get Myself To Read The Want Ads. The Thought Of Sitting In Front Of A Man Behind A Desk And Telling Him That I Wanted A Job, That I Was Qualified For A Job, Was Too Much For Me. Frankly, I Was Horrified By Life, At What A Man Had To Do Simply In Order To Eat, Sleep, And Keep Himself Clothed. So I Stayed In Bed And Drank. When You Drank The World Was Still Out There, But For The Moment It Didn't Have You By The Throat.

-Charles Bukowski

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I Couldn't Get Myself

Charles Bukowski

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I Couldn't Get Myself To Read The Want Ads. The Thought Of Sitting In Front Of A Man Behind A Desk And Telling Him That I Wanted A Job, That I Was Qualified For A Job, Was Too Much For Me. Frankly, I Was Horrified By Life, At What A Man Had To Do Simply In Order To Eat, Sleep, And Keep Himself Clothed. So I Stayed In Bed And Drank. When You Drank The World Was Still Out There, But For The Moment It Didn't Have You By The Throat.

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I Couldn't Get Myself To Read The Want Ads. The Thought Of Sitting In Front Of A Man Behind A Desk And Telling Him That I Wanted A Job, That I Was Qualified For A Job, Was Too Much For Me. Frankly, I Was Horrified By Life, At What A Man Had To Do Simply In Order To Eat, Sleep, And Keep Himself Clothed. So I Stayed In Bed And Drank. When You Drank The World Was Still Out There, But For The Moment It Didn't Have You By The Throat.

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Daddy,' My Mother Asked, 'aren’t We Going To Run Out Of Gas?' No There’s Plenty Of God-damned Gas.' Where Are We Going?' I’m Going To Get Some God-damed Oranges!

Lsd, Yeah, The Big Parade – Everybody's Doin' It Now. Take Lsd, Then You Are A Poet, An Intellectual. What A Sick Mob. I Am Building A Machine Gun In My Closet Now To Take Out As Many Of Them As I Can Before They Get Me.

The Ladies Usually Go For The Biggest Damn Fool They Can Find; That Is Why The Human Race Stands Where It Does Today: We Have Bred The Clever And Lasting Casanovas, All Hollow Inside, Like The Chocolate Easter Bunnies We Foster Upon Our Poor Children.

He Asked, "what Makes A Man A Writer?" "well," I Said, "it's Simple. You Either Get It Down On Paper, Or Jump Off A Bridge.

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I Dunno," I Said, "but I Have An Idea That People Who Don't Think Too Much Tend To Look Younger Longer

Few 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.

Her Violence Frightened Me. She Always Claimed That I Was The Jealous One, And I Was Often Jealous, But When I Saw Things Working Against Me I Simply Became Disgusted And Withdrew. Lydia Was Different. She Reacted. She Was The Head Cheerleader At The Game Of Violence.

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I Often Stood In Front Of The Mirror Alone, Wondering How Ugly A Person Could Get.

Some People Have Written That My Writing Has Helped Them Go On. It Has Helped Me Too. The Writing, The Roses, The 9 Cats.

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If You Let Them Kill You, They Will

I Stopped Looking For A Dream Girl, I Just Wanted One That Wasn't A Nightmare.

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Genius Might Be The Ability To Say A Profound Thing In A Simple Way.

This Time Has Finished Me.

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I Am For The Small Man Who Has Not Forgotten, For The Man Who Loves His Beer And His Women And His Sunlight

Nobody Ever Finds The One

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Cigarette Smoke

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I Grow Tired Of 18th Century Moralities In A 20th Century Space-atomic Age

That's What Friendship Means: Sharing The Prejudice Of Experience.

I Am A Dolt Of A Man, Easily Made Happy Or Even Stupidly Happy Almost Without Cause And Left Alone I Am Mostly Content.

Great Art Is Horseshit, Buy Tacos.

The World Is Full Of Boring, Identical And Mindless People.

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...in That Drunken Place You Would Like To Hand Your Heart To Her And Say Touch It But Then Give It Back.

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If I Bet On Humanity, I'd Never Cash A Ticket.

And Then There Are Some Who Believe That Old Relationships Can Be Revived And Made New Again. But Please If You Feel That Way Don't Phone Don't Write Don't Arrive

Beware Of Those Who Seek Constant Crowds; They Are Nothing Alone.

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Style Means No Shield At All. Style Means No Front At All. Style Means Ultimate Naturalness. Style Means One Man Alone With Billions Of Men About.

People Don't Do Me Much Good.

Keep Your Money In Your Pocket. Or Bet It On A Good Horse.

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There Was Nothing Glorious About The Life Of A Drinker Or The Life Of A Writer.

Almost Everybody Is Born A Genius And Buried An Idiot.

Thought Provoking

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There Is No Hurry. Time Means Nothing To You.

Nothing Can Save You Except Writing. It Keeps The Walls From Failing.

I Had No Freedom. I Had Nothing.

There's Nothing Else As Pleasant As Being Unpleasant When There's Nothing Else To Do, And There's Usually Nothing Else To Do.

The Difference Between Art And Life Is That Art Is More Bearable

To Not To Have Entirely Wasted One’s Life Seems To Be A Worthy Accomplishment, If Only For Myself.

If I Hadn't Been A Drunkard, I Probably Would Have Committed Suicide Long Ago.

News Travels Fast In Places Where Nothing Much Ever Happens.

I Was An Agnostic. Agnostics Didn't Have Much To Argue About.

I Have Seen Too Many Men Wilt And Go Silly Under A Little Light, And Then They Continue To Write And Get Published, Turning Out Pure Crap Under A Name That Has Become A Bad Habit. The Next Poem Is All That Counts. You Can't Stand On Past Poems.

And Even The Trees We Walked Under Seemed Less Than Trees And More Like Everything Else.

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Knowledge Without Follow-through Is Worse Than No Knowledge.

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Before You Kill Something Make Sure You Have Something Better To Replace It With.

The Worst Thing For A Writer Is To Know Another Writer, And Worse Than That, To Know A Number Of Other Writers. Like Flies On The Same Turd.

It Is All Ash And Dry Leaves And Grief Gone Like An Ocean Liner.

Dear Child, I Only Did To You What The Sparrow Did To You; I Am Old When It Is Fashionable To Be Young; I Cry When It Is Fashionable To Laugh. I Hated You When It Would Have Taken Less Courage To Love.

And I Said To Myself That He Was The First Thing That I Had Ever Missed In My Life.

The Park Grass Looked Greener, The Park Benches Looked Better And The Flowers Were Trying Harder.

The Free Soul Is Rare, But You Know It When You See It

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When You Clean Up A City, You Destroy It.

I Could Never Accept Life As It Was, I Could Never Gobble Down All Its Poisons Bu There Were Parts, Tenuous Magic Parts Open For The Asking.

The Way To Create Art Is To Burn And Destroy Ordinary Concepts And To Substitute Them With New Truths That Run Down From The Top Of The Head And Out Of The Heart

I Write Right Off The Typer. I Call It My "machinegun." I Hit It Hard, Usually Late At Night While Drinking Wine And Listening To Classical Music On The Radio And Smoking Mangalore Ganesh Beedies.

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.

I Went To The Bathroom And Threw Some Water On My Face, Combed My Hair. If I Could Only Comb That Face, I Thought, But I Can't.

Let It Die. Let There Be A New Beginning. It’s Awful. Goodnight.

When I Am Feeling Low All I Have To Do Is Watch My Cats And My Courage Returns

She Knew What She Wanted And It Wasn't / Me. / I Know More Women Like That Than Any / Other Kind.

If I Never See You Again I Will Always Carry You Inside Outside On My Fingertips And At Brain Edges And In Centers Centers Of What I Am Of What Remains.

American Women Drove Hard Bargains And The Ended Up Looking The Worst For It. The Few Natural American Women Left Were Mostly In Texas And Louisiana.

That's The Problem With Drinking, I Thought, As I Poured Myself A Drink. If Something Bad Happens You Drink In An Attempt To Forget; If Something Good Happens You Drink In Order To Celebrate; And If Nothing Happens You Drink To Make Something Happen.

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We Are Here To Laugh At The Odds.

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