Charles Bukowski Quotes

In my case, I was stuck there for quite a while. New York is large enough to be a very abstract city, so nobody cares.

I don't know if this is because I'm a bit too old, but it is true that I'm getting insensible about romance recently. I'm very used to being alone now, and I don't think that's not half bad.

Friends: not one. Just a few acquaintances who imagine they feel something for me and who might be sorry if a train ran over me and the funeral was on a rainy day.

The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic.

For one who is indifferent, life itself is a prison. Any sense of community is external or, even worse, nonexistent. Thus, indifference means solitude. Those who are indifferent do not see others. They feel nothing for others and are unconcerned with what might happen to them. They are surrounded by a great emptiness. Filled by it, in fact. They are devoid of all hope as well as imagination. In other words, devoid of any future.

I wonder if I shall ever see her again, and I realize that I scarcely care. I can feel the sheets beneath me, and the cold air on my chest. I feel fine. I feel absolutely fine. I feel nothing at all.

I don’t care about anyone, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual.

It has been strange to me to return to life and to feel that I have any sympathy with human beings, after the long interval of quiet and indifference which succeeded my marriage.

The world belongs to who doesn't feel. The primary condition to be a practical man is the absence of sensitivity.

The city had defeated her, just like they said it would. Like some overcrowded party, no one had noticed her arrival, and would notice if she left.

What I like about New York City is nobody cares. If they do, they don't ever approach. They just give you a 'What's up?' and that's it.

I love New York! You walk around, nobody notices you, you don't notice anybody, you're in your own little world.

How can you not care?" "Practice," Magnus said, looking back to his book and turning the page.

You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is where we are not... No one person in the world is necessary to you or to me.

Lonely? I don't know. They tell me this is cold. I don't know what cold is, because I don't freeze. So I don't know what lonely means either. Bears are made to be solitary.

The tragedy of love is indifference.

Welcome to New York, where everybody's a stranger, and nobody is.

I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved I never would have cried...I am a rock.

Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

For the air of lonely men surrounded him now, a still atmosphere in which the world around him slipped away, leaving him incapable of relationship, an atmosphere against which neither will nor longing availed. This was one of the significant earmarks of his life.

[On living in New York City:] I'm oblivious to everything. I just don't notice anything. I sat in a coffee shop, drank half a cup of coffee before I noticed there was lipstick on the cup. There was wadded-up gum and lipstick on the napkin. I must have been sitting on that woman's lap for an hour.

They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love.

Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.

In a certain state of mind, all trace of feeling is banished. Whenever I remain silent in a certain way, I don't love you, have you noticed that?

Being a stranger was like being dead, and brought to mind how, in a book he had read that most folks misunderstood one common state: The flip side of love is indifference, not hate.