Charles Bukowski Quotes

You can not escape a prison if you do not know you're in one.

Marriage is another trap. If you are someone who likes independence, it's another stamp against that. And you have to swear to fidelity.

When I am free to train and free to move, I feel like a gorilla in the jungle. Then, when there are a bunch of media obligations, I feel like I have been captured and am being kept on display.

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

A man is the prisoner of his power.

The things in life which try to pin us down are the things we have to try to work against.

There's that bubble of childhood that makes you innocently do anything. Then, when you get older, that pops, and you're aware of limitations and judgment and social pressures and things like that.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

We like to think, in our anthropocentric way, that irony means that you transcended something, but actually, what it means is that you've realised that you're stuck in something, and you have this kind of uncanny awareness of that, and there's not much you can do about that feeling of stuckness.

What stands out about me the most? Probably my chains. I don't know.

A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage.

Freedom is not overcoming what you think stands in your way. It is understanding that what is in your way is part of the way.

Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.

The more we learn the more we realize how little we know.

The great thing about knowing you're wrong is the moment you realize it, you're right.

For some people, life is the process of knocking through walls to get out. For others, it is the building of walls.

as soon as you know you are in prison, you have a possibility to escape.

I tell myself that I know you, and then when I think about it, I realize that I don't.

For why trap what is already trapped? It is only in flight that we know the freedom of the bird

You can indeed be aware of your body, but you can also be aware of your mind - you can right now notice all the thoughts and ideas and images floating in front of the mind's inward eye. You can, in other words, experience your mind, be aware of your mind. And it's very important to experience your mind directly, cleanly, intensely, because only by bringing awareness to the mind can you begin to transcend the mind and be free of its limitations.

restrictions create frustrations!

It's good to slowly come to the realization that you understand nothing.

Once you realize something, then you can't pretend you don't know it any more.

You can’t change what you haven’t realized yet. Once you realize what you were asleep to, the change happens on its own.

I didn't know there was something really wrong, because everyone was crazy. It's just that everyone else was still functional. I didn't realize that I was any worse off.