Charles Bukowski Quotes

I didn't know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.

Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be. (Finding My Way Home)

The want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it, is intolerable.

Why is the place where I want to be so often so far from where I am?

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.

Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.

If you desire, you are restless.

Wanting more is just a recipe for heartache.

The other girls in the village never felt restless. Nhamo was like a pot of boiling water. 'I want...I want...,' she whispered to herself, but she didn't know what she wanted and she had no idea how to find it.

It is awful to want to go away and to want to go nowhere.

Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones.

Just once in my life--oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?

We don't know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it

I want - I want - I want - was all that she could think about - but just what this real want was she did not know.

It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting.

Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.

I want you more than I should," she heard herself say. "I have you less than I want.

Want is misery.

If you have everything, then you don't want to go on. It's the lacking that makes you search for something better.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

I wasn't unhappy, but I was a little like: 'Is this it? Really?' I was thirsty.

I've always had this deep and chronic sense of dissatisfaction.

'Free' is more of that 'familiarity breeds contempt' kind of thing. It's about saying 'Wait, I'm longing for something more than I have and I don't know what it is that I want, but I know I want it.' It has nothing to do with what I'm going through, personally.

Many women long for what eludes them, and like not what is offered them.