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

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

Understanding the Quote: "there's nothing else as pleasant as being unpleasant when there's nothing else..."

This quote by Charles Bukowski reflects deeply on the theme of pleasant. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Pleasant, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Charles Bukowski interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski is celebrated for insightful thoughts on pleasant and motivation. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Pleasant
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When I Begin To Doubt My Ability To Work The Word, I Simply Read Another Writer And Know I Have Nothing To Worry About. My Contest Is Only With Myself, To Do It Right, With Power, And Force, And Delight, And Gamble.
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Basically, That's Why I Wrote: To Save My Ass, To Save My Ass From The Madhouse, From The Streets, From Myself.
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The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Often Unbearable.
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Well, People Got Attatched. Once You Cut The Umbilical Cord They Attatched To The Other Things. Sight, Sound, Sex, Money, Mirages, Mothers, Masturbation, Murder, And Monday Morning Hangovers.
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Sometimes I Feel As If We Are All Trapped In A Movie. We Know Our Lines, Where To Walk, How To Act, Only There Is No Camera. Yet, We Can't Break Out Of The Movie. And It's A Bad One.
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You Are On The Freeway Threading Through Traffic Now, Moving Both Towards Something And Towards Nothing At All As You Punch The Radio On And Get Mozart, Which Is Something, And You Will Somehow Get Through The Slow Days And The Busy Days And The Dull Days And The Hateful Days And The Rare Days, All Both So Delightful And So Disappointing Because We Are All So Alike And So Different.
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Your Parents Don't Give You Much Love, Do They?' 'i Don't Need That Stuff,' I Told Her. 'henry, Everybody Needs Love.' 'i Don't Need Anything.' 'you Poor Boy.
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Trying
Way
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Sadness
Thinking
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Waiting
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Morning
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The Last Cigarettes Are Smoked, The Loaves Are Sliced, And Lest This Be Taken For Wry Sorrow, Drown The Spider In Wine. You Are Much More Than Simply Dead: I Am A Dish For Your Ashes, I Am A Fist For Your Vanished Air. The Most Terrible Thing About Life Is Finding It Gone.
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Wine
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Winner
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Thought Provoking
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Years
Lovely
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Argument
Laundry
To Do A Dull Thing With Style-now That's What I Call Art.
Life
Art
Thought Provoking
I Didn't Have Any Friends At School, Didn't Want Any. I Felt Better Being Alone. I Sat On A Bench And Watched The Others Play And They Looked Foolish To Me.
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Play
Benches
I Will Remember The Kisses, Our Lips Raw With Love, And How You Gave Me Everything You Had And How I Offered You What Was Left Of Me.
Kissing
Lips
Remember
They, All Of Them, Seemed To Put Literary Form In Front Of The Actuality And Living Of Life Itself.
Form
Actuality
Fronts
As We Live We All Get Caught And Torn By Various Traps. Nobody Escapes Them. Some Even Live With Them. The Idea Is To Realize That A Trap Is A Trap. If You Are In One And You Don't Realize It, Then You're Finished.
Ideas
Realizing
Traps
It Was Sad, It Was Sad, It Was Sad. When Betty Came Back We Didn't Sing Or Laugh, Or Even Argue. We Sat Drinking In The Dark, Smoking Cigarettes, And When We Went To Sleep, I Didn't Put My Feet On Her Body Or She On Mine Like We Used To. We Slept Without Touching. We Had Both Been Robbed.
Drinking
Sleep
Dark
Meanwhile The 3 A.m. Drunks Of The World Would Lay In Their Beds, Trying In Vain To Sleep, And Deserving That Rest, If They Could Find It.
Sleep
Alcohol
Trying
Disneyland Remains The Central Attraction Of Southern California, But The Graveyard Remains Our Reality.
Reality
California
Southern
I Wasn’t Going Anywhere And Neither Was The Rest Of The World. We Were All Just Hanging Around Waiting To Die And Meanwhile Doing Little Things To Fill The Space. Some Of Use Weren’t Even Doing Little Things. We Were Vegetables.
Vegetables
Space
Waiting
Like The Fox I Run With The Hunted And If I’m Not The Happiest Man On Earth I’m Surely The Luckiest Man Alive.
Running
Men
Alive
I'll Get Back To The Whores And The Horses And The Booze, While There's Time.
Horse
Booze
Get Back
It Is Good To Be Sitting Some Place In Public At 2:30 In The Afternoon Without Getting The Flesh Ripped From Your Bones.
Sitting
Afternoon
Flesh
I Am For The Small Man Who Has Not Forgotten, For The Man Who Loves His Beer And His Women And His Sunlight
Beer
Men
Forgotten
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Library
Downtown
Rooms
I Knew Exactly What I Was Doing: I Was Doing Nothing. Because I Knew There Was Nothing To Do.
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Keep Your Money In Your Pocket. Or Bet It On A Good Horse.
Horse
Pockets
Good Horse
In This Room The Hours Of Love Still Make Shadows.
Shadow
Rooms
Hours
It Doesn't Matter If Prince Charles Falls Off His Horse Or That The Hummingbird Is So Seldom Seen Or That We Are Too Senseless To Go Insane. Coffee. Give Us More Of That Nothing Coffee.
Horse
Fall
Coffee
Love Is A Form Of Prejudice. You Love What You Need, You Love What Makes You Feel Good, You Love What Is Convenient. How Can You Say You Love One Person When There Are Ten Thousand People In The World That You Would Love More If You Ever Met Them? But You'll Never Meet Them.
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I Was Fighting A Small Fight Of My Own Which Wasn't Leading Anywhere-but Like A Man With A Bent Spoon Trying To Dig Through A Cement Wall I Knew That A Small Fight Was Better Than Quitting: It Kept The Heart Alive.
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Heart
Fighting
As We Go On With Our Lives We Tend To Forget That The Jails And The Hospitals And The Madhouses And The Graveyards Are Packed.
Jail
Goes On
Forget
I Can Almost Understand Why People Leap From Bridges.
Bridges
People
Leap
Find What You Love And Let It Kill You. For All Things Will Kill You, Both Slowly And Fastly, But It’s Much Better To Be Killed By A Lover.
Lovers
All Things
What You Love
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.
Past
Agony
Drunk
There Was Something About That City, Though It Didn't Let Me Feel Guilty That I Had No Feeling For The Things So Many Others Needed. It Let Me Alone. Sitting Up In My Bed The Lights Out, Hearing The Outside Sounds, Lifting My Cheap Bottle Of Wine, Letting The Warmth Of The Grape Enter Me As I Heard The Rats Moving About The Room, I Preferred Them To Humans. Being Lost, Being Crazy Maybe Is Not So Bad If You Can Be That Way Undisturbed. New Orleans Gave Me That. Nobody Ever Called My Name.
Crazy
Moving
Wine
If You Can Only Remain Pure In Your Stupidity, Someday You May Get A Phone Call From Hell.
Phones
Stupidity
Phone Calls
Look, Let Me Put It This Way: With Me, You’re Number One And There Isn’t Even A Number Two.
Love
Unique
Two
Many A Good Man Has Been Put Under The Bridge By A Woman.
Men
Bridges
Good Man
Drink From The Well Of Yourself And Begin Again.
Drink
Begin Again
Wells
I Am Going To Start Selling Air In Dark Orange Bags Marked: Moon-blooms
Dark
Moon
Air
The Streets Were Full Of Insane & Dull People. Most Of Them Lived In Nice Houses And Didn't Seem To Work, And You Wondered How They Did It.
Monday
Nice
People
It Was Only The Matter Of A New Voice. Nobody Listened To An Old Voice Anymore. Old Voices Became A Part Of One's Self, Like A Fingernail.
Self
Voice
Matter
Potential," I Said, "doesn't Mean A Thing. You've Got To Do It. Almost Every Baby In A Crib Has More Potential Than I Have.
Baby
Mean
Said
I Think A Man Can Keep On Drinking For Centuries, He'll Never Die; Especially Wine Or Beer...i Like Drunkards, Man, Because Drunkards, They Come Out Of It, And They're Sick And They Spring Back, They Spring Back And Forth...if I Hadn't Been A Drunkard, I Probably Would Have Committed Suicide Long Ago.
Suicide
Spring
Drinking
I Was Young I Was So Young It Hurt Like A Knife Inside Because There Was No Alternative Except To Hide As Long As Possible--- Not In Self-pity But With Dismay At My Limited Chance: Trying To Connect.
Hurt
Self
Knives
Goodness Can Be Found Sometimes In The Middle Of Hell.
Sometimes
Hell
Goodness
Her Eyes Always Had A Frantic, Lost Look. He Could Never Cure Her Eyes Of That.
Eye
Looks
Lost
There's Nothing Like Privacy. You Know, I Like People. It's Nice That They Might Like My Books And All That...but I'm Not The Book, See? I'm The Guy Who Wrote It, But I Don't Want Them To Come Up And Throw Roses On Me Or Anything. I Want Them To Let Me Breathe.
Nice
Book
People
There Is Always One Woman To Save You From Another And As That Woman Saves You She Makes Ready To Destroy
Women
Ready
One Woman
To Be Young Is The Only Religion.
Young
Be Young
Our Disappointment Sits Between Us.
Disappointment
Humanity, You Never Had It To Begin With.
Reality
Humanity
Are People Crazy? People Waited All Their Lives. They Waited To Live, They Waited To Die. They Waited In Line To Buy Toilet Paper. They Waited In Line For Money. And If They Didn't Have Any Money They Waited In Longer Lines. You Waited To Go To Sleep And Then You Waited To Awaken. You Waited To Get Married And You Waited To Get Divorced. You Waited For It To Rain, You Waited For It To Stop. You Waited To Eat And Then You Waited To Eat Again. You Waited In A Shrink's Office With A Bunch Of Psychos And You Wondered If You Were One.
Crazy
Rain
Sleep
The Wisest Thing To Do If You’re Living In Hell Is To Make Yourself Comfortable.
Hell
Things To Do
Ifs
In My Next Life I Want To Be A Cat. To Sleep 20 Hours A Day And Wait To Be Fed. To Sit Around Licking My Ass.
Sleep
Cat
Waiting
Terror Finally Becomes Almost Bearable But Never Quite Terror Creeps Like A Cat Crawls Like A Cat Across My Mind
Cat
Mind
Creeps
If You're Losing Your Soul And You Know It, Then You've Still Got A Soul Left To Lose.
Life
Sunset
Thought Provoking
I Was Naturally A Loner, Content Just To Live With A Woman, Eat With Her, Sleep With Her, Walk Down The Street With Her. I Didn't Want Conversation, Or To Go Anywhere Except The Racetrack Or The Boxing Matches. I Didn't Understand T.v. I Felt Foolish Paying Money To Go Into A Movie Theatre And Sit With Other People To Share Their Emotions. Parties Sickened Me. I Hated The Game-playing, The Dirty Play, The Flirting, The Amateur Drunks, The Bores.
Party
Dirty
Sleep
Dying Should Come Easy: Like A Freight Train You Don't Hear When Your Back Is Turned.
Dying
Easy
Should
There Is Nothing That Teaches You More Than Regrouping After Failure And Moving On. Yet Most People Are Stricken With Fear. They Fear Failure So Much That They Fail. They Are Too Conditioned, Too Used To Being Told What To Do. It Begins With The Family, Runs Through School And Goes Into The Business World.
Running
Moving
School
If I'm An Ass, I Should Say So. If I Don't, Somebody Else Will. If I Say It First, That Disarms Them.
Firsts
Ass
Should
As The Shadows Assume Shapes I Fight The Slow Retreat Now My Once-promise Dwindling Dwindling Now Lighting New Cigarettes Pouring More Drinks It Has Been A Beautiful Fight Still Is.
Beautiful
Fighting
Promise
I Am A Series Of Small Victories And Large Defeats.
Victory
Defeat
Small Victories
Let' Em Learn Or Let' Em Die
Ems
Dies
Lawyers, Doctors, Plumbers, They All Made The Money. Writers? Writers Starved. Writers Suicided. Writers Went Mad.
Doctors
Mad
Lawyer
I Went Over To See Marina Two Or Three Or Four Times A Week. I Knew As Long As I Could See The Girl I Would Be All Right…. Soon After, I Got A Letter From Fay. She And The Child Were Living In A Hippie Commune In New Mexico. It Was A Nice Place, She Said. Marina Would Be Able To Breathe There. She Enclosed A Little Drawing The Girl Had Made For Me.
Girl
Children
Nice
Drinking Is An Emotional Thing. It Joggles You Out Of The Standardism Of Everyday Life, Out Of Everything Being The Same.
Drinking
Beer
Emotional
There Would Never Be A Way For Me To Live Comfortably With People. Maybe I'd Become A Monk. I'd Pretend To Believe In God And Live In A Cubicle, Play An Organ And Stay Drunk On Wine.
Believe
Wine
Play
When You Leave Your Typewriter You Leave Your Machine Gun And The Rats Come Pouring Through.
Writing
Gun
Typewriters
The Secret Is Writing Down One Simple Line After Another.
Writing
Simple
Secret
I Lapsed Into My Pathetic Cut-off Period. Often With Humans, Both Good And Bad, My Senses Simply Shut Off, They Get Tired, I Give Up. I Am Polite. I Nod. I Pretend To Understand Because I Don’t Want Anybody To Be Hurt. That Is The One Weakness That Has Lead Me Into The Most Trouble. Trying To Be Kind To Others I Often Get My Soul Shredded Into A Kind Of Spiritual Pasta. No Matter. My Brain Shuts Off. I Listen. I Respond. And They Are Too Dumb To Know That I Am Not There.
Spiritual
Hurt
Giving Up
It Was Hard For Me To Believe. When Recess Was Over I Sat In Class And Thought About It. My Mother Had A Hole And My Father Had A Dong That Shot Juice. How Could They Have Things Like That And Walk Around As If Everything Was Normal, And Talk About Things, And Then Do It And Not Tell Anybody?
Mother
Father
Believe
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.
Fashion
Art
Style
The Psyche Has Been Burned And Left Us Senseless, The World Has Been Darker Than Lights-out In A Closet Full Of Hungry Bats, And The Whiskey And Wine Entered Our Veins When Blood Was Too Weak To Carry On
Wine
Blood
Light
If You Think They Didn't Go Crazy In Tiny Rooms Just Like You're Doing Now Without Women Without Food Without Hope Then You're Not Ready.
Crazy
Thinking
Rooms
Love Dries Up, I Thought As I Walked Back To The Bathroom, Even Faster Than Sperm.
Bathroom
Faster
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.
Numbers
Turds
Worst
Joan Of Arc Had Style. Jesus Had Style.
Jesus
Style
Arcs
People In Love Often Become Edgy, Dangerous. They Lose Their Sense Of Perspective.
People
Perspective
Dangerous
There Is Nothing That Teaches You More Than Regrouping After Failure And Moving On.
Moving
Teach
Regrouping
I Can't Think Of Any Poet-recluses Outside Of One Dead Jeffers. [robinson Jeffers] The Rest Of Them Want To Slobber Over Each Other And Hug Each Other. It Appears To Me That I Am The Last Of The Poet-recluses.
Thinking
Hug
Want
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