Charles Bukowski Quotes

Not intending to be funny: I sit at the keyboard, put my fingers on the keys and go. To me, it's the real secret of writing. Put yourself in front of the screen or the blank sheet of paper and get to work.

And once I know what the first page is, then the rest will come.

A journalist also needs to be disciplined, and so do I. I am, essentially, lazy. Without discipline I'd be just a mass of gummy bears on the sofa instead of on book tour with my eighth novel.

If you're going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.

I had novels to write, so I wrote them.

I should be concentrating on writing pages.

I'm a fictional monogamist - I can only work on one thing at a time - but each novel starts growing in my head when I'm about midway through the previous novel.

A manuscript under way always gave me something to do; only while enduring the aimlessness between books was I truly glum.

I'd like to know what I could do if I really had the time to spend on writing a book, with no columns or shows to do at the same time.

My method is, I just sit down and write a book.

In the end, you have to just sit down, shut up, and write.

Shut up and write. Don't talk about writing, just physically do it.

I like to write without being stoned. I like to have a hit or two and then go punch up the writing. I just see different things and hear different things. But it's nice to be working from the base that I wrote originally and then come to it with a little buzz. I can have a little wine from time to time. I have a hit from time to time, but those are the only things I do.

When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time," and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.

When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, "No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys."

I think the first thing - if you want to be a writer - the first thing you need to do is write. Which sounds like an obvious piece of advice. But so many people have this feeling they want to be a writer and they love to read but they don't actually write very much. The main part of being a writer, though, is being profoundly alone for hours on end, uninterrupted by email or friends or children or romantic partners and really sinking into the work and writing. That's how I write. That's how writing gets done.

I know exactly what I want to write. I do not write until I do. Usually I write it all down only once. And that goes relatively quickly, since it really depends only on how fast I type.

You can't be a writer if you don't write, it's just that simple.

When I'm really plugged in I find it difficult to write. It's like digging a well. If you make a void, something moves in to fill it. Writing books is like that. It's mostly about freeing up time, doing nothing, and in that time some writing starts to happen. We need to figure out how to maintain those voids.

Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

I think at some level, it's just alchemy that we, as writers, can't explain when we write the characters. I don't set out to create the characters - they're not, to me, collections of quirks that I can put together. I discover the characters, instead. I usually go through a standard set of interview questions with the character in the beginning and ask the vital stuff: What's important to you? What do you love? Hate? Fear? .. and then I know where to start. But the characters just grow on their own, at a certain point. And start surprising me.

When you get an idea, go and write. Don't waste it in conversation.