Charles Bukowski Quotes

If you are to be employed by the BBC, you must promise not to get drunk…. You look as if you will be washed out of poetry by whisky.

My mother is still battling alcoholism.

Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.

I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I'm glad I was disabused.

I had to accept that I was an alcoholic, that was the main thing. I think you've got to. But I try not say that I'm an alcoholic. I prefer to say that it's a disease I've got.

It's not cool to be an alcoholic.

[Referring to alcohol:] After the lapse of nearly fifty years of undisputed political freedom, the blood-freezing clank of a cruel bondage is still heard.

... the sin of drunkenness which is the root of all sins.

This government can't afford two drunkards. You've got to stop.

Smoking, chewing betel nut, and taking drugs for pleasure are not for Christians. These practices are wrong because (1) they make us their slaves, (2) they harm our bodies, and (3) they are unclean … It can be very hard to give up these habits. But we must do so to please Jehovah.

Home Protection—protection against the tyranny of drink.

If we could make men sober, we would have no slavery.

I've dealt with a lot of physical pain, with a lot of emotional pain; anybody's who's ever been an alcoholic has handled both of those in extreme.

The alcohol had the code and mystery about it as a writer's drug, but I'm glad that's been debunked. But the trouble with the drinking, much as I hate to admit it, is it helped the work.

Alcohol is the river we sit on the banks of, contemplating. Sometimes we watch ourselves float past, sometimes we watch ourselves sink.

I did mostly alcohol. There were drugs, too - pills - and there was a danger that I would go over the edge. I could have. I thank God I didn't.

Yeah, I admit to myself, yeah, I'm an alcoholic.

My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.

I wish I'd gotten sober at a younger age.

When I stopped drinking, it was only because I thought if I don't stop, I'm going to die.

Because I know I'm an addict, and I know I'm an alcoholic.

I keep telling people: Don't make me the poster boy for AA because I don't know a lot about sobriety, but I do know a lot about drinking.

'Higher Power' was the result of a personal experience: a friend of mine who went through the process of addiction and recovery. It's a very, very tough thing - very easy to become addicted and very, very hard to become a recovering addict.

Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.

I had what AA calls 'a convincer' - which made me realize that I couldn't do it any more. I went out drinking for about 70 hours here in London. At the end I knew I was done.