"To me, nudity is a joke. I don't think nude people are very attractive at all. I like my women fully clothed. I like to imagine what might be under there. It might not be the standard thing. Imagine, ..."
- Charles Bukowski
"What is your advice to young writers?” “Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes."
"Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lift..."
"Beasts bounding through time. Van Gogh writing his brother for paintsHemingway testing his shotgunCeline going broke as a doctor of medicinethe impossibility of being humanVillon expelled from Paris f..."
"Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it jus..."
"the gods play nofavorites."
"All right, God, say that You are really there. You have put me in this fix. You want to test me. Suppose I test You? Suppose I say that You are not there? You've given me a supreme test with my parent..."
"the gods seldomgivebut so quicklytake."
"We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain."
"and our few good times will be rare because we have the critical senseand are not easy to fool with laughter"