Quotes from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets. . . when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“the soul has no skin; the soul only has insides that want to sing, finally, can't you hear it, brothers? softly, can't you hear it, brothers? a hot piece of ass and a new Cadillac ain't going to solve a god-damned thing.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Baby, in a couple of minutes I'm going to rip off your god damned panties and show you some turkey neck you'll remember all the way to the graveside. I have a vast and curved penis, like a sickle, and many a gutted pussy has gasped come upon my callous and roach-smeared rug. First let me finish this drink.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“To be young is the only religion.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“and if I have any advice to give to anybody it’s this: take up watercolor painting.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Beautiful thoughts, and beautiful women never last.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Experience can dull. With most men experience is a series of mistakes; the more experience you have the less you know.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“No pain means the end of feeling; each of our joys is a bargain with the devil.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“One more drink and you're dead. This is no way to talk to a suicide head.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“it was going to be all right.
at last.
for a while.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. A writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Listen, friend, he said, this whole game is just one big deck of cards. if you want to get into the game you have to take whatever comes up in the shuffle.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Once in a rare lifetime have you ever been in a roomful of people who only helped you when you looked at them, listened to them. this was one of those magic times. I knew it.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“it was a beauty fire, it contained soul, the sides of sunshine mountains, hot streams of smiling fish, warm stockings smelling a bit like toast. I held my hand over the little flame. I had beautiful hands. that one thing I had. I had beautiful hands.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Nothing against the law ever cease to exist.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“did she love you?
only as an extension of herself.
what else can love be?
the common sense to care very much for something very good. it needn't be related by bloodline. it can be a red beachball or a piece of buttered toast.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“rewolucja - to brzmi bardzo romantycznie, ale takim nie jest. rewolucja to krew, flaki i obłęd; to małe dzieci, które zabito, bo akurat wlazły pod nogi; małe dzieci, które nie są w stanie zrozumieć, co się tu, do kurwy nędzy, dzieje; to twoja dziwka, to twoja żona, której bagnetem rozpruto brzuch, a potem zgwałcono w dupę na twych oczach; to ludzie, którzy kiedyś śmiali się na filmach z Myszką Miki, a teraz torturują swych pobratymców, zanim się więc na to zdecydujesz, to wcześniej zastanów się, dokąd może zaprowadzić uniesienie i co z niego zostanie, gdy już będzie po wszystkim”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Když chce někdo zabít Boha, znamená to, že ho chci zabít i já?”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“(by the way . . . I realize I switch from present to past tense, and if you don't like it . . . ram a nipple up your scrotum. -printer: leave this in.)”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Beynime bir soluk hava çekebilmek için savaşmaktan bıktım. Yıllarca insanlardan kaçmamın nedeni bu, ve onlarla görüşmeye başladığımdan beri inime dönme zamanının geldiğini hissediyorum.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“That was love, that was bravery. Shit, who could really stand me? anyone who could stand me had a lot of forgiveness of soul.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“He, and all of us, are the victims of an attitude that has been growing in our land for nearly a decade - an attitude that says a man can choose the laws he must obey, that he can take the law into his own hands for a cause, that crime does not necessarily mean punishment.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“is it possible to love a human being?
of course, especially if you don’t know them too well. I like to watch them through my window, walking down the street.
Stirkoff, you’re a coward.
of course, sir.
what is your definition of a coward?
a man who would think twice before fighting a lion with his bare hands.
and what is your definition of a brave man?
a man who doesn’t know what a lion is.
every man knows what a lion is.
every man assumes that he does.
and what is your definition of a fool?
a man who doesn’t realize that Time, Structure and Flesh are being mostly wasted.
who then is a wise man?
there aren’t any wise men, sir.
then there can’t be any fools. if there isn’t any night there can’t be any day; if there isn’t any white there can’t be any black.
I’m sorry, sir. I thought that everything was what it was, not depending on something else”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“so we went up the hill. then we got into my room and I looked at them both. my pure and beautiful slim and magic little girl glorious fuck with the hair dangling down to the asshole, and next to her the tragedy of the ages: slime and horror, the machine gone wrong, frogs tortured by little boys and head-on car collisions and the spider taking in the ball-less buzzing fly and the landscape brain of Primo Carnera going down under the dull playboy guns of cocksure Maxie Baer — new heavyweight champ of America — I, I rushed at the Tragedy of the Ages — that fat slob of accumulated shit.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“I talked to Miriam. She says you paint and write, you're an artist"
"at rare times I'm an artist; at most other times I'm nothing”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“I get very tired of the precious intellects who must speak diamonds every time they open their mouths. I get tired of battling for each space of air for the mind. that’s why I stayed away from people for so long, and now that I am meeting people, I find that I must return to my cave. there are other things beside the mind: there are insects and palm trees and pepper shakers, and I’ll have a pepper-shaker in my cave, so laugh.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“whatya wanna hear on the juke?” I asked. “anything. anything you like.” I loaded the thing. I didn’t know who I was but I could load a juke box.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“Devrim sözcüğü kulağınıza hoş geliyor, değil mi? ama hiç öyle değildir, inanın bana. devrimin ne olduğunu bilmek ister misiniz? kan, bağırsak ve delilik. yolunuza çıktığı için ölen çocuklar, dünyadan habersiz yavrular. yanınızdaki kaltağın, hatta karınızın gözünüzün önünde kasaturalanıp ırzına geçilmesidir. bir zamanlar miki fare filmlerine gülen erkeklerin birbirine işkence etmeleridir. böyle bir eyleme geçmeden önce eylemin ruhunun nerede olduğunu ve eylem bittiğinde nerede olacağını çok iyi düşünmek gerek. Dostoyevski'nin Suç ve Ceza'sına katılmıyorum, koşullar ne olursa olsun kimseyi öldürme meselesi. ama iyi düşünmek gerek. işin delirtici yanı tek bir mermi bile sıkmadan canlarımızı alıyor olmaları. para babalarının şişko oğulları Beverly Hills'de on dört yaşında kızların ırzlarına geçerken ben bir yerlerde asgari ücretle belimi kırıyordum. helada beş dakika fazla kaldığı için işten kovulan adamlar biliyorum. anlatmak istemediğim çok şey gördüm. ama bir şeyi öldürmeden önce yerine daha iyisini koyabileceğinden emin olmalısın. parklarda nefret palavraları sıkan siyasi fırsatçılardan daha iyi bir şeyler olmalı elinizde. bir şeyin bedelini ödemek canınıza okuyacaksa otuz altı aylık garantiden fazlasını arayın. devrime duyulan romantik özlemin dışında bir şey göremedim henüz. ne gerçek bir lider ne de şimdiye kadar her devrim sonrası gelen ihanetin önüne geçebilecek bir platform. şayet birini yok edeceksem o adamın yerine karbon kopyasının gelmesini istemem. tarihi bar helasında barbut oynayan ayyaşlar gibi harcadık. insan ırkından utanç duyuyorum, ama bu utanca katkıda bulunmanın da bir anlamı yok. elimden gelirse utancı azaltmak isterim.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“that’s what friendship means: sharing the prejudice of experience.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

About the author

Popular quotes

“I will wait till after Christmas.” What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worthwhile to set about anything we are disinclined to.”
― George Eliot, quote from Daniel Deronda

“ Christmas Amnesty. You can fall out of contact with a friend, fail to return calls, ignore e-mails, avoid eye contact at the Thrifty-Mart, forget birthdays, anniversaries, and reunions, and if you show up at their house during the holidays (with a gift) they are socially bound to forgive you—act like nothing happened. Decorum dictates that the friendship move forward from that point, without guilt or recrimination. If you started a chess game ten years ago in October, you need only remember whose move it is—or why you sold the chessboard and bought an Xbox in the interim. (Look, Christmas Amnesty is a wonderful thing, but it’s not a dimensional shift. The laws of time and space continue to apply, even if you have been avoiding your friends. But don’t try using the expansion of the universe an as excuse—like you kept meaning to stop by, but their house kept getting farther away. That crap won’t wash. Just say, “Sorry I haven’t called. Merry Christmas” Then show the present. Christmas Amnesty protocol dictates that your friend say, “That’s okay,” and let you in without further comment. This is the way it has always been done.)”
― Christopher Moore, quote from The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

“There was something strangely peaceful about the house, something very rare and difficult to define. It was like a house in an old tale, discovered by the hero one evening in midsummer. In the tale there would be strands of ivy clustering the walls, and barring the entrance and the house itself would have slept for a thousand years.”
― Daphne du Maurier, quote from Jamaica Inn

“She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Tombs of Atuan

“At six-fifteen the sun snuck up and mugged the moon.”
― Sister Souljah, quote from The Coldest Winter Ever

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.