Charles Bukowski Quotes

I believe that it is sometimes less difficult to wake up and feel that I am alone when I really am, than to wake up with someone else and be lonely.

Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.

My mother said I was a little odd as a kid. I was alone a lot, but I didn't feel alone.

Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone.

Solitude is the human condition in which I keep myself company. Loneliness comes about when I am alone without being able to split up into the two-in-one, without being able to keep myself company.

The value of solitude - one of its values - is, of course, that there is nothing to cushion against attacks from within, just as there is nothing to help balance at times of particular stress or depression.

I've been living alone for so long, everything about me’s private. I’m surprised anyone’s able to understand a word I say.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

The task of the solitary man is to be even more solitary.

People will occasionally ask me if I understand what it's like to be lonely. And the truth is I don't, because for me, solitariness is a blessing, a gift. Me, I get on fine with myself.

When everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself.

I really do work in solitude.

I've always been alone. I grew up alone. I like it that way. Even when I'm in an arena surrounded by 10,000 people, I'm alone in my head.

My 'aloneness' is extremely valuable to me.

Yes, I do seek solitude, but I am never lonely.

I like to write about the solitary things people do. Humans seem to function best when they're alone.

I'm anti-social, and I don't have too many friends. I'm in my own world doing my own things - training in martial arts, dancing, or watching a Michael Jackson video.

You may not enjoy loneliness, because loneliness is sad. But solitude is something else; solitude is what you look forward to when you want to be alone, when you want to be with yourself. So, solitude is something we all need from time to time.

There's a difference between loneliness and solitude. You pursue solitude, I think. But loneliness is a completely different isolating thing.

We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.

In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called "by myself"; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.

In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person's heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside.

being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.

One's better off alone, and yet there are so many things that are impossible to fathom on one's own. In fact it's a terrible business and the task is a hard one.