Charles Bukowski Quotes

Sanity brings pain but madness is a vile thing.

I've had to find my sanity.

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

I might look successful and happy being in front of you today, but I once suffered from severe depression and was in total despair.

I'm the last person to claim that I'm sane.

I will always try to be happy. I don’t think people really understand the value of happiness until they know what it’s like to be in that very, very dark place. It’s not romantic. Not even a little.

It is important to remember that at first blush, going sane feels just like going crazy.

People say I am mad. I am not mad. I am trying to heal my soul.

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

I'm not much crazier than anybody else, but I'm not much saner.

Despair often breeds disease.

To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom: an important imagination, and the way to happiness.

Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.

There are times in my life when I haven't been happy. Sometimes it's not even physical, it's something else. The key is identifying why you're unhappy and doing whatever you can to fix it in a healthy way.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.

I know some people that have gone through serious struggles. People that were close to me, and I've seen some terrible things about people who lose it. So I think that type of pain is something that's human and that, actually, can help us look at ourselves a little bit.

The authority of depression is horrifying. I felt like my brain was busted and that I could never feel good again. I really thought that I was never gonna heal.

I'm a woman who has gone through many heartaches, enough to dedicate my whole life to trying to figure them out.

A man who is 'of sound mind' is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.

I didn't decide I was crazy until 1952. That's when I began making a steady salary and could afford to be crazy.

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.

Nothing good comes out of depression.

I don't know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.

It's unhealthy for people to never express any kind of negativity or doubt. To have balance, you need to address that side of your thoughts as well as the positive. Otherwise, you tend toward crazy.