Charles Bukowski - Ham on Rye (1982)

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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.

Charles Bukowski
All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was alway controlling who got a chance and who didn't.

Charles Bukowski
Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.

Charles Bukowski
The dog approached again, cautiously. I found the bologna sandwich, ripped off a chunk, wiped the cheap watery mustard off, then placed it on the sidewalk. The dog walked up to the bit of sandwich, put his nose to it, sniffed, then turned and walked off. This time he didn't look back. He accelerated down the street. No wonder I had been depressed all my life. I wasn't getting proper nourishment.

Charles Bukowski
I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future.

Charles Bukowski
I always started a job with the feeling that I'd soon quit or be fired, and this gave ma a relaxex manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power.

Charles Bukowski
Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?

Charles Bukowski
They laughed. Things were funny. They weren't afraid to care. There was no sense to life, to the structure of things.

Charles Bukowski
What a weary time those years were — to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

Charles Bukowski
I felt I had to win. It seemed very important. I didn't know why it was important and I kept thinking, why do I think this is so important? And another part of me answered, just because it is.

Charles Bukowski
I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more foolish. What I need is a good doctor, I thought. You either lived or died.

Charles Bukowski
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.

Charles Bukowski
I didn't like anybody in that school. I think they knew that. I think that's why they disliked me. I didn't like the way they walked or looked or talked, but I didn't like my mother or father either. I still had the feeling of being surrounded by white empty space. There was always a slight nausea in my stomach.

Charles Bukowski
There are no good wars or bad wars. The only thing bad about a war is
to lose it. All wars have been fought for a so-called good Cause on both
sides. But only the victor's Cause becomes history's Noble Cause. It's not a
matter of who is right or who is wrong, it's a matter of who has the best
generals and the better army!

Charles Bukowski
Erections, Ejaculations,Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness.

Charles Bukowski
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
Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit.

Charles Bukowski
When I get down to my last dime I'll just walk over to skid row." "There are some real weirdos down there." "They're everywhere.

Charles Bukowski
I knew I was strong, and maybe like they said, "crazy." But I had this feeling inside of me that something real was there.

Charles Bukowski
I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.

Charles Bukowski
So, that's what they wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That's what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for me.

Charles Bukowski
Getting drunk was good. I decided that I would always like getting drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe if you could get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn't become so obvious yourself.

Charles Bukowski
I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.

Charles Bukowski
What good are you? What can you do? It has cost me a thousands of dollars to raise you, feed you, clothe you! Suppose I left you here on the street? Then what would you do?" "Catch butterflies

Charles Bukowski
You are thirty minutes late." "Yes." "Would you be thirty minutes late to a wedding or a funeral?" "No." "Why not, pray tell?" "Well, if the funeral was mine I'd have to be on time. If the wedding was mine it would be my funeral.

Charles Bukowski
I read my books at night, like that, under the quilt with the overheated reading lamp. Reading all those good lines while suffocating. It was magic.

Charles Bukowski
Since some people had told me that I was ugly, I always preferred shade to the sun, darkness to light

Charles Bukowski
I wasn't a misanthrope and I wasn't a misogynist but I liked being alone. It felt good to sit alone in a small space and smoke and drink. I had always been good company for myself.

Charles Bukowski
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!

Charles Bukowski
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.

Charles Bukowski