Charles Bukowski Quotes

It never occurred to me when I was young that I could be an author. That would be like saying, "I want to be a movie star" or "I want to be a wizard." I didn't have any concept of what that path would look like. Maybe that's why I didn't publish my first book until I was 38.

It's not easy making a living as a writer, and for many years I worked at a Waterstones in Dublin. It was a good environment for an aspiring writer, with lots of events and authors appearing.

I advise those who want to become writers to study veterinary medicine, which is easier. You don't want to be a writer unless you have no choice - and if you have no choice, good luck to you.

I never really wanted to be a singer - not with any longevity. But I always wanted to be a writer.

I've wanted to be an author as long as I can remember. English was always my favorite subject at school, so why I went on to do a degree in French is anyone's guess.

I first tried a novel when I was 14. First finished one when I was 16. First started working on stuff that had a chance of being salable in my early 20s, then didn't write much fiction at all because I was in grad school.

I always wanted to be a fiction writer, but I couldn't figure out how you could be a novelist and make any money, which continues to be a problem for novelists the world over.

I knew I wanted to be a writer before I knew that being a writer was possible.

I always thought of myself as a kind of literary bureaucrat. And that was never going to be enough for me.

People ask me, 'What do you do?' And I tell them I'm a writer, but always with the silent reservation, 'I am, of course, not really a writer. Hemingway was a writer.'

Back in the 1980s, when I was a lowly editorial assistant by day and trying to be a novelist by night, no god reigned so supreme as the god of literary prose.

Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess.

I didn't really realize that writing... would be fun and people would pay you to do it. Being an astronaut is a glory profession, and so is writing, in a way.

It always seemed much better to be a writer - a Real Writer - than a successful hack.

It was always my dream to write for a living.

For every Steven King, there are a dozen guys like me who make a good living. For every David Brin, there are a dozen authors who have managed to make it their day job. For each of them, there are a dozen more for whom writing is a terrific supplement.

I've always liked to write, but I never thought I could make a career out of it.

There are plenty of paths to becoming a writer, but I think the most reliable ones involve total commitment: writing for magazines and newspapers, teaching writing, editing books, representing authors.

I'm probably one of the few authors in this country who could very comfortably live off my writing.

I had a series of terrible jobs, whatever would allow me to write for four hours during the day. During that time I wrote three novels - all of which were extraordinarily poor. I decided after that to go and get my MFA.

I went to college to study hospitality. I quickly got out of that and realized that what I liked to do was write.

Writing offers fairly large rewards to a few successful people, but the rewards come late, and most writers are failures.

For a person whose sole burning ambition is to write - like myself - college is useless beyond the Sophomore year.

Aha! Today I shall become an author! And I will auth and auth and auth and make a squillion dollars, whoopee!

But how do I get to having to write a book?... It was a mother who bore me, not an inkwell!