Charles Bukowski Quotes

Strangers are an endangered species.

Loneliness in a crowd of people was the worst kind of loneliness, but she couldn't help it.

I meet so many people, but I don't know anybody.

I am like the fish in the aquarium, thinking in a different language, adapting to a life that’s not my natural habitat. I am the people in the other cars, each with his or her own story, but passing too quickly to be noticed or understood.

But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.

Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.

I want to be around people, not crickets.

I'm so secluded. Very alone.

The man in the street is always a stranger.

I was always such a people-watcher. I would sit on street corners alone and watch people and make up stories about them in my head. Then, all of a sudden, I was the one being watched.

Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.

One of the odd enjoyments in life is to be alone in a room full of people. To have them there as unknowing human filler in your wide shot.

My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street - what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya!That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.

A lot of people are lonely. A lot of people are lonely even when they're surrounded by other people.

You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then?

Loneliness Got a mind of its own The more people around The more you feel alone

... we are all terribly alone no matter what people say.

I'm with a crowd but oh so alone.

There were people everywhere but no one was mine, and I was no one's.

What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.

Our social relationships are limited, most of the time, to gossip and criticizing people's behavior. This observation slowly pushed me to isolate from the so-called social life. My days pass by in solitude.

Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

People come and people go, moving fast and moving slow, I'm in a crowd and yet I'm all alone.

There are all these people here I don't know by sight or by name. And we pass alongside each other and don't have any connection. And they don't know me and I don't know them. And now I'm leaving town and there are all these people I will never know.

Just looking at society as a whole, there are a lot of different things that we are not doing as a group to make sure we are close. Everything is in transit. People are moving from place to place. You can have a neighbor you live next to for five years and never speak to, and nobody has a problem with that.