“Life's as kind as you let it be.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“What is your advice to young writers?”
“Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“Never trust a man in a jumpsuit”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“Ann, I love you. I hope my car starts. I hope the sink isn't plugged up. I'm glad I didn't fuck a groupie. I'm glad I'm not very good at getting into bed with strange females. I'm glad I'm an idiot. I'm glad I don't know anything. I'm glad I haven't been murdered. When I look at my hands and they are still on my wrists, I think to myself, I am lucky.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“There was nothing glorious about the life of a drinker or the life of a writer.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“If you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“That’s how they hooked you—they gave you just enough to keep alive but they never gave you enough so you could finally escape.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“What is your advice to young writers?"
"Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes."
"What is your advice to older writers?"
"If you're still alive, you don't need any advice."
"What is the impulse that makes you create a poem?"
"What makes you take a shit?”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“But you know, only boring people get bored. They have to prod themselves continually in order to feel alive.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“Three a.m. drunks, all over America, were staring at the walls, having finally give it up. You didn't have to be drunk to get hurt, to be zeroed out by a woman; but you could get hurt and become a drunk. You might think for a while, especially when you were young, that luck was with you, and sometimes it was. But there were all manner of averages and laws working that you know nothing about, even as you imagined things were going well. Some night, some hot summer Thursday, night you became the drunk, you were out there alone in a cheap rented room, and no matter how many times you'd been out there before, it was no help, it was even worse because you had got to thinking you wouldn't face it again. All you could do was light another cigarette, pour another drink, check the peeling walls for lips and eyes. What men and women did to each other was beyond comprehension.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“Ευφυία είναι η ικανότητα να πεις κάτι βαθυστόχαστο με απλό τρόπο.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“What is your advice to young writers?” “Drink, fuck and smoke plenty of cigarettes.” “What is your advice to older writers?” “If you’re still alive, you don’t need any advice.” “What is the impulse that makes you create a poem?” “What makes you take a shit?” “What do you think of Reagan and unemployment?” “I don’t think of Reagan or unemployment.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“Το πιο δύσκολο πράγμα είναι να μαντέψεις ποια πρέπει να είναι η πρώτη σου κίνηση.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“You know, doctor, wisdom comes at a hell of an hour—when youth is gone, the storm is over and the girls have gone home.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Hot Water Music
“And all I’m saying is that it is within our capability to survive. I don’t guarantee it. Prophecy is a lost art. And I don’t know what the probabilities are that we will go one way or another. And no one says it’s easy. But it is clear, as Einstein said, that if we do not make a change in our way of thinking, all is lost.”
― Carl Sagan, quote from The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
“If one does not get it into his head from the very beginning that the world is full of unseemly situations, for the most part his demeanour will be poor and he will not be believed by others.”
― quote from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
“You can’t think about how much you have left to do because that’s just one thought, one sad thought, that’ll make you bummed out all day long. Instead you’ve got to think about how much you’ve already done.”
― Catherine Gilbert Murdock, quote from Dairy Queen
“Open eyes are of little use when the mind behind them is closed.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Princeps' Fury
“There's a flame of magic inside every stone & every flower, every bird that sings & every frog that croaks. There's magic in the trees & the hills & the river & the rocks, in the sea & the stars & the wind, a deep, wild magic that's as old as the world itself. It's in you too, my darling girl, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I'm sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars.”
― Kate Forsyth, quote from The Puzzle Ring
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.