Charles Bukowski Quotes

Writing is my passion. It is a way to experience the ecstatic. The root understanding of the word ecstasy—“to stand outside”—comes to me in those moments when I am immersed so deeply in the act of thinking and writing that everything else, even flesh, falls away.

To me, letters have always been a robust medium of sublimation. I don't remember what I was like before I learned my ABC's, but for as long as I can remember I have made them with my fingers and felt them in my bones.

I'm the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it's the best of both possible worlds.

I want to get within myself and write. I really, really want to write.

Without a function, we cease to be. So, I will write till I die.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.

If I ever stopped being angry, I couldn't write anymore. How could I?

Being a writer is not the point. Writing is.

For me, writing, drawing, and political activism are three separate pursuits; each has its own intensity. I happen to be especially attuned to and engaged with the society in which I live. Both my writing and my drawing are invariably mixed up with politics, whether I want them to be or not.

Music is the reason I'm doing movies; I do credit that. But acting is an escape route for me.

The keyboard is my journal.

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

One can become drab, dull, and boring doing the same thing every day. Writing helps break the monotony.

For better or worse, poetry is my life.

I think writing gives me creative freedom.

Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it's through writing that we make certain vital connections.

Art is action. The way I live my life to its highest degree is by writing, the practice of art.

[Writing] is almost like those boats that sit really low in the water; they look kind of ugly. And then you get one of them up to 80 miles an hour and the hull comes up, and it's a beautiful thing. I'm okay with that for myself.

When I don't write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in a prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.

Some of my affectionate envious friends say, "You write too much." Maybe, I answer. But as long as the best of your little is worse than the worst of my much, I will keep on doing so.

My first love was reading, which inspired me to write.

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

When you start putting pen to paper, you see a side of your personal truth that doesn't otherwise reveal itself in conversation or thought.