Charles Bukowski Quotes

I won't let anything destroy me.

Here must thou be, O man, Strength to thyself - no helper hast thou here - Here keepest thou thy individual state: No other can divide with thee this work, No secondary hand can intervene To fashion this ability. 'Tis thine, The prime and vital principle is thine In the recesses of thy nature, far From any reach of outward fellowship, Else 'tis not thine at all.

I know I have great inner strength; I always have. I can blank things out, cut people out, and I know that I can go and live in a cave on my own if necessary.

Remember that you are not a damsel in distress, waiting for some prince to rescue you. Forget that prince. With your brain and your resourcefulness, you can rescue yourself.

I like strength. I depend on my own.

Don't worry about me. Worry about the next man. If you see me in a fight, don't help me. Pour honey on me and then help the bear. Don't worry about me. I'm Dorothy Bowe's baby boy. I'm going to be all right.

I basically built myself up and I'm not about to let somebody else tear me down.

It's a cold world out there, and this world will pass you by if you give another man anything over yourself.

in freeing myself from the romantic dream of finding another man to come along and rescue me, I learned that no one can rescue me except myself.

A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she will find her courage wanting.

Is the depressing part that he's only half right - it's not that she doesn't need rescuing but that nobody else will be able to do it? She has always somehow known that she is the one who will have to rescue herself. Or maybe what's depressing is that this knowledge seems like it should make life easier, and instead it makes it harder.

Believe in your strength and your vision. Learn to repeat to yourself, 'It all depends on me'.

Be your own place of safety, she told herself, straightening. No crossbar in the world could protect her from what lay ahead, and neither could a tiny knife ticked in her boot - though there her tiny knife would most certainly remain - and neither could a man, not even Akiva. She had to be her own strength, complete unto herself.

nobody can save you but yourself and you’re worth saving. it’s a war not easily won but if anything is worth winning then this is it.

What people say isn't going to stop me. I have to do things for myself.

My mom raised me to never have anything control me.

There is no real security except for whatever you build inside yourself.

I take none of that to heart. I don't feel like there's anything that I need to do for anybody else. I want to win bad enough for myself anyway, that nothing anybody can say can make me want to win any more.

The only one who can beat me is me.

I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.

I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self.

You are the master of your own ship, pal. There are lots of people who fall into troubled waters and don't have the guts or the knowledge or the ability to make it to shore. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

There ain't nothing from the outside that can lick any of us.

You have to hold your bloody own or you're lost.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.