Bukowski on Gardening

"I dig in the old garden a bit now and then. The neighbors like it when they see me doing that. A man working in his garden is not a dangerous man (they think). They've heard some wild screaming nights over here when I've gone mad on wine and run about the house naked, up and down the stairs, falling, cursing and all that. They prefer me in the garden."

-Charles Bukowski
April, 1979

Bukowski on Short Stories

"I think the best idea is to write them the way you want to write them, then look for a market. the deliberate slant automatically takes the juice out."

-Charles Bukowski to A. D. Winans
November 2, 1976

Bukowski on 98% of Movies

"...millions of dollars spent to create something more terrible than the actual lives of most living things; one should never have to pay an admission to hell."

-Charles Bukowski, 1992

Bukowski on Success

"Things are very nice right now, and it's damn well time they should be. the health, the feelings, the flow is (are) still in good running order. my pre-training holds me in ultra good stead. carry on, rally forth, all that. shit, it's only the 8th round and I've got a good cornerman to patch up the cuts. rah rah rah. or have I finally gone nuts?"

-Charles Bukowski to John Martin, December 14th, 1975

Bukowski on Classical Music and Booze

"Bach was easy because he didn't have to carry around a lot of excess crap. anyhow, classical music and booze - taken together - have carried me through many a night when it seemed as if there were nothing else around. and maybe there wasn't."

-Charles Bukowski to Roth Wilkofsky, September 4th, 1975.

Why We Have So Many Bukowski Quotes on The Brothel and What it Says About Society

Why Do We Have So Many Bukowski Quotes on The Literary Brothel?
Klaus Varley

To answer to the title question: Charles Bukowski Selected Letters sits atop my toilet, along with an old issue of Entertainment Weekly that proclaims to list of the "Top 1000 best movies, TV Shows, Albums, Books and More of the last 25 years!" So it's either post a quote from Buk or EW. Buk usually wins.

But lets talk about EW.

Top 1000? By all calculations, a hundred movies, and a hundred shows, cds and books is only four hundred. That means there are six hundred "mores." What are these "mores?" Websites, video games, Broadway shows (there were 100 Broadway shows in the last 25 years?) and...more? Needless to say, I haven't gotten all the way through the issue.

But I did get through Bukowski's Letters, Volume II. Its cover doesn't sport Harry Potter, Beyonce, Bono, and Will Smith, (where are the Broadway actors? the websites?) but it has the goods. They're inside.

The words, baby, the words.

(Speaking of words, what you don't know about the paragraph before last is that I wrote "their inside," and moved on. If we were in a typewriter age, our zine would suffer. "Look at this guy; he doesn't know "they're from their." Let's get some comics and get out of this hippie book store.")

I originally started this entry thinking I wanted to write something about Bukowski, something about how I finished the second volume and am moving on to the third, something about how there's nothing like appreciating #2 when you're reading Bukowski.

But I can't even say it. I can't even make the joke...

Or can I?

I can.

You see, when I was talking about #2, I was talking about poo.

Done. With Bukowski. For today.

The top entertainment technological advancement of the past 25 years is the DVD player? Over the Mp3? Over CD ripping technology? What a debate.

-KV

Charles Bukowski on Writing

What? Another Bukowski quote? When are you going to write something, Klaus!?!

Never fear, a little something is coming tomorrow, and a little "something something" is coming on Monday. Stay tuned... -KV

Bukowski on "How to Become a Good Writer"

"The problem with being a poet is that by the time you get well-known you can't write anymore. or, at least, not as well, but, still, being young & unknown isn't the answer either. a lot of them grin out machine-made shit that they think is very real only because they like it. then, they quit. to become a good writer takes time & luck & moxie & no special desire to be a good writer."

-Charles Bukowski to Douglas Blazek, January 15th, 1968

Another Quote from Charles Bukowski

Another Quote from Bukowski. Because people like reading them. -KV

"all I need now is 60 days in jail or 10 years, and my whole thought process will be realigned. everything happens for the best and the worst, like when Marina was first born, the line popped into my head, 'she will probably be fucked by a sailor who never read Walter De La Mare.' that was then. now, I think, so what?"

-Charles Bukowski, Letter to John William Corrington, January 3, 1968

Another Quote from Bukowski

"shit, it would be sweet to get paid to write! to just sit here and bang bang bang, and get paid to do what I have to do anyhow - like getting paid to shit or fuck, what? too much but worth a try. and prob. will not happen."

-Charles Bukowski, June, 1967. From Charles Bukowski, Selected Letters, Volume 2: 1965-1970.

Bukowski Quote for the weekend

"think becomes a dirty word. because they have been TAUGHT THAT THEY WERE THINKING ALL ALONG. not so, of course. but if a man can recover, if he has the bounceback, the miracle, he will find that the first 30 years were wasted in fighting off, regrouping before HE CAN BECOME EASY. THINKING OR LIVING IS NOT VERY HARD AT ALL; it is the other thing that they are doing that is killing them."

-Charles Bukowski to Carl Weissner, Jan. 28, 1967.

Quote from Charles Bukowski Selected Letters Volume 2

"unless I can get at my piano (typewriter) an hour or so each day I am not worth a shit to anybody. not that I am creating anything immortal, although now and then I may slip over that line (?) but it is mostly the sound of the typer like ENGINE /////// MY ENGINE MY ENGINE GOD DAMN IT, and when they shut my motor off I am no better than a hockshop owner."

-Charles Bukowski to Carl Weissner - January 28, 1967

Bukowski Quote of the Weekend

even when starving
the rejection slips hardly ever bothered me:
I only believed that the editors were
truly stupid
and i just went on and wrote more and
more.
I even considered rejects as
action; the worst was the empty
mailbox.

-Charles Bukowski from "hell is a closed door," The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Bukowski Quotes - Because we need more hits

"he rushes toward me and somehow it's a part of the part of the part."

-Charles Bukowski, "days like razors, nights full of rats," from The Last Night of the Earth Poems


ONE MORE WHILE I FINISH THIS BOTTLE OF WINE (not a Bukowski quote, but could be.)


almost every writer thinks
they are doing
exceptional work.

that's normal.

being a fool is
normal.

and then I'd
get out of bed
find a piece of paper
and start
writing
again.

-Charles Bukowski, "the writer," from The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Bukowski Quote of the Day-Week-Whenever

"An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way."

Yes, another quote from Charles Bukowski...because a lot people search for quotes by him, and we want those people to arrive here, at The Literary Brothel, and not on thinkexist or some dumb quote site.

So, thank you, people, for the searchers.

And welcome to The Literary Brothel...