Charles Bukowski Quotes

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.

Our ministry also supports orphanages in the U.S. and overseas, thousands of poor children in Latin America, drug centers for addicted men, and a drug center in Israel.

City and state governments did little or nothing to orient the new migrants, help them find jobs, master complex bus and trolley systems to get to where the jobs were, and to make landlords repair decayed rooms—all measures requiring money invested at the start but saving billions in later welfare, crime, and compacted bitter racial and ethnic tensions.

I used to work with a relief group that took care of the people in the dump. We took them food and water and medicine and built homes and took them to church services, whatever was needed.

With commitment and the right investments, we can create a San Francisco where no one is forced, relegated, or allowed to sleep on the streets, and where no one endures addiction or mental illness on the streets without supportive and effective services.

There was however, a group of 507 individuals who were permanent street dwellers [in Miami.] These 507 were not indigent, down-on-their-luck families. They were single people and every one of them was mentally ill.

No one checked to see if I had a place to live or food to eat, and at 14, I found myself basically on my own.

Never run from what you don't understand, as it will be waiting for you every time you come to a stop.

Shelter Network's programs and services are a rainbow in the clouds for homeless children and adults.

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.

Not everyone who's homeless is a drug-addict or in need of mental health care. Some are normal people who've been knocked down, and it can happen to you, too. Not all of us made bad life choices.

No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way.

We have a thousand points of light for the homeless man. We've got a kinder gentler machine gun hand.

Clearly, there are a thousand and one scenarios for how someone can slip through the cracks. I'll walk down the street and see a homeless person, and I'll want to stop them and say, How did this happen? Where's your mother? Are you physically ill? Mentally ill?

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home.

When I grew up, I lived in the ghettos of Hollywood; it was the most disgusting place to be. I was known as the crazy little kid. I did impressions. Then I realized that's not what I want to do. I don't want to be a comedian to please other people.

When I was in Afghanistan in 2007, I went from village to village where refugees had returned, and they were living out in the open under tents, sometimes completely exposed to the environment. And they were homeless, which meant they would lose children in the winter to the cold and in the summers in the extreme heat. It's extremely humiliating for them to be homeless, culturally it's very shameful.

Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against.

Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soulless army of human prey.

Life is like a game where you seek to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving your goals. You get better at this game through practice. The game consists of a series of choices that have consequences. You can't stop the problems and choices from coming at you, so it's better to learn how to deal with them.

Welfare is ... the victim of national compassion fatigue.

But the sower going forth to sow sets foot into time to come, the seeds falling on his own place. He has prepared a way for his life to come to him, if it will. Like a tree, he has given roots to the earth, and stands free.

Homelessness came into being because liberal policy makers embraced a series of foolish ideas.

Those who are marginal in the world are central in the Church, and that is how it is supposed to be! Thus we are called as members of the Church to keep going to the margins of our society. The homeless, the starving, parentless children, people with AIDS, our emotionally disturbed brothers and sisters - they require our first attention.