Charles Bukowski Quotes

I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.

I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude.

Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.

I feel calm when I'm on my own.

Though the most beautiful creature were waiting for me at the end of a journey or a walk; though the carpet were of silk, the curtains of the morning clouds; the chairs and sofa stuffed with cygnet's down; the food manna, the wine beyond claret, the window opening on Winander Mere, I should not feel -or rather my happiness would not be so fine, as my solitude is sublime.

Better, Cilla thought, to be alone on a quiet night than to be alone in a crowd. Much better.

I've always been drawn to solitude, felt a kind of luxurious relief in its self-generated pace and rhythms.

I do say all I've ever written about is being alone. And most people take that as, 'Oh, that's so sad.' And I always say, 'No. No, all I ever write about is being alone, and sometimes that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.'

I spend most of my time alone, because I so value and thrive in the quiet. Heaven.

Your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes, far in the distance.

Solitude sometimes is best society.

There is nothing finer than to be alone with nothing to distract you.

Having the certitude of a succession of days... equally free and beautiful, peace descends on me.

They say it's darkest before the dawn, but it also tend to be quietest, and the quiet lets you hear yourself better.

Their leaving made me melancholy, though I also felt something like relief when they disappeared into the dark trees. I hadn't needed to get anything from my pack; I'd only wanted to be alone. Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren't a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.

The thing that I love, especially after sound check, is when I'm in that stadium alone. It's complete silence. I love that.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Sometimes I go for days without speaking to a soul. I think, “I should make that call", but I put it off. Because there’s something pleasurable about not talking. But then I love talking, so it’s not that. But sometimes it can be nice. It’s not like I sit here philosophizing, because I’ve no talent for that. It’s just this thing about silence that’s so wonderful.

Wisdom grows in quiet places.

Far from the world I walk, and from all care.

Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom. Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace

Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn't have to be a lonely kind of thing.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.

I love silence.

I just want to live in peace and quiet.