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If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.

Charles Bukowski

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Charles Bukowski
Age: 73 †
Born: 1920
Born: August 16
Died: 1994
Died: March 9
Actor
Author
Autobiographer
Columnist
Diarist
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Henry Charles Bukowski
Buk
charles bukowski
Start
Even
Trying
Going
Way
Derision
Otherwise

More quotes by Charles Bukowski

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They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them.
Charles Bukowski
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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.
Charles Bukowski
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I was fairly poor but most of my money went for wine and classical music. I loved to mix the two together.
Charles Bukowski
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It’s never quite right, all the things we are taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we die, all the lives we live.
Charles Bukowski
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The secret is writing down one simple line after another.
Charles Bukowski
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I would say that Mickey Mouse has a greater influence on the American public than Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Rabelais, Shostakovitch, Lenin, and/or Van Gogh. Which says 'What?' about the American Public. Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality.
Charles Bukowski
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It's hot tonight and half the neighborhood is drunk. the other half is dead. if I have any advice about writing poetry it's - don't. I'm going to send out for some fried chicken.
Charles Bukowski
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It's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse... no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies... not the death of his love but the shoelace that snaps with no time left.
Charles Bukowski
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If I hadn't been a drunkard, I probably would have committed suicide long ago.
Charles Bukowski
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I still have a little whiskey left and therefore a chance.
Charles Bukowski
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A man needed somebody. There wasn't anybody around, so you had to make up somebody, make him up to be like a man should be. It wasn't make-believe or cheating. The other way was make-believe and cheating: living your life without a man like him around.
Charles Bukowski
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Don’t do it. Don’t love me.
Charles Bukowski
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Some people like what you do, some people hate what you do, but most people simply don't give a damn.
Charles Bukowski
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It was like a church in there as only the truly lost sit in bars on Tuesday mornings at 8:00 a.m.
Charles Bukowski
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Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious.
Charles Bukowski
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And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.
Charles Bukowski
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Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.
Charles Bukowski
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Homosexuals are delicate and bad poetry is delicate and [Allen] Ginsberg turned the tables by making homosexual poetry strong poetry, almost manly poetry but in the long run, the homo will remain the homo and not the poet.
Charles Bukowski
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People who believe in politics are like people who believe in God: they are sucking wind through bent straws.
Charles Bukowski
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the writing of some men is like a vast bridge that carries you over the many things that claw and tear. The Wine of Forever
Charles Bukowski