Charles Bukowski Quotes

Dreams, dreams. I walk them; I live them. I delude myself with them. It's a wonder I can spot reality anymore.

I thought I was a superstar at 12.

I'll always just be stupid boy, and I'm happy with that.

As a kid, I was naive. One thing I did have a dream of, though: I had a dream I would make a kung-fu movie.

To spend a life in dreams, that sounded too lovely.

During episodes of unemployment I find it rewarding to sleep as much as possible-anything from twelve to fourteen hours a day is a good starting point. Sleep spares you humiliation and saves money at the same time: nothing to eat, nothing to buy, just lie back and dream your life away.

I had big dreams when I was a boy. And I can't say that I never saw a beach house in Malibu in those dreams.

When you're young and have a dream, it's pretty simplistic. You don't think about or have any way of knowing everything it can be, and anticipate that.

Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.

When you lose the capacity to dream, you lose the capacity to love, and the energy to love is lost.

Like all people who have nothing, I lived on dreams.

I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.

Play this game like the 8 year old you used to be, dreaming to play in the show! Heart, passion, and fire! Remember where you came from!

You stay in touch with the boy who dreamed impossible dreams.

You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams.

I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do. To dream, to live in the world of dreams. But it doesn’t last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back.

At eight, he had once told his mother that he wanted to paint air.

What's given, in fact, always depends on the person or thing it's given to. A minor incident in the street brings the cook to the door and entertains him more than I would be entertained by contemplating the most original idea, by reading the greatest book, or by having the most gratifying of useless dreams. If life is basically monotony, he has escaped it more than I. And he escapes it more easily than I. The truth isn't with him or with me, because it isn't with anyone, but happiness does belong to him.

In a wonderland they lie, dreaming as the days go by

So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone’s older brother and someone’s older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them.

I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.

Doctor, I had never had anybody like her in my life, she was the fulfillment of my most lascivious adolescent dreams– but marry her, can she be serious? You see, for all her preening and perfumes, she has a very low opinion of herself, and simultaneously– and here is the source of much of our trouble-a ridiculously high opinion of me. And simultaneously, a very low opinion of me! She is one confused Monkey, and, I'm afraid, not too very bright.

You can linger too long in your dreams.