Sometimes 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

You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have.

— Charles Bukowski

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.

— Charles Bukowski

People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.

— Charles Bukowski

You don't see them often. For wherever the crowd is, they are not. These odd ones, not many. But from them come the few good paintings, the few good symphonies, the few good books and other works. And from the best of the strange ones, perhaps nothing. They are their own paintings, their own books, their own music, their own work. Sometimes I think I see them. Say a certain old man sitting on a certain bench, in a certain way, or a quick face going the other way in a passing automobile, or there's the certain motion of the hands of a bag boy or a bag girl while packing supermarket groceries. Sometimes it is even somebody you've been living with for sometime. Sometimes it is even somebody you've been living with for sometime. You will notice a lightning quick glance never seen from them before. Sometimes you will only note their existence suddenly in vivid recall some months, some years after they are gone. [...]

— Charles Bukowski; The Strongest of the Strange

I have nothing to say about nothing. There's nothing to say. The less I say they better I feel.

— Charles Bukowski

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

— Charles Bukowski