Quotes from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Something else is hurting you - that’s why you need pot or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can’t think.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Forgive me, I guess I am off in the head, but I mean, except for a quickie piece of ass it wouldn't matter to me if all the people in the world died. Yes, I know it's not nice. But I'd be as contended as a snail; it was, after all, the people who had made me unhappy.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“I'm not the cruel type, but they are, and that's the secret.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“..the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them...”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“to ask them to legalize pot is something like asking them to put butter on the handcuffs before they place them on you, something else is hurting you - that's why you need pot or whiskey, or whips and rubber suits, or screaming music turned so fucking loud you can't think, or madhouses or mechanical cunts or 162 baseball games in a season. or vietnam or israel or the fear of spiders. your love washing her yellow false teeth in the sink before you screw.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“why don't we go back out there and tell them what happened?

because nothing happened except that everybody has been driven insane and stupid by life. in this society there are only two things that count: don't be caught without money and don't get caught high on any kind of high.

(Night Streets of Madness)”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, and 5 times out of 9 I'll show you an exceptional man." "show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“I walked around the block twice, passed 200 people and failed to see a human being.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“This birth thing. And this death thing. Each one had it's turn. We entered alone and we left alone. And most of us lived lonely and frightened and incomplete lives. An incomparable sadness descended up on me. Seeing all that life that must die. Seeing all that life that would first turn to hate, to dementia, to neuroses, to stupidity, to fear, to murder, to nothing - nothing in life and nothing in death.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“When I get out, I thought, I am going to wait a while and then I am going to come back to this place, I am going to look at it from the outside and know exactly what's going on in there, and I'm going to stare at those walls and I'm going to make up my mind never to get on the inside of them again.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“We’ve all heard that little woman who says, “Oh, it’s terrible what these young people do to themselves, in my lsi other drugs, is a terrible thing”.
Then you look, the woman who speaks in this way: you have no eyes, no teeth, no brains, no soul, no ass, no mouth, no warmth, no spirit, nothing, just a stick… and avran made ​​you wonder how to reduce it in that state teas and pastries and the church.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“our sins are manufactured in heaven to create our own hell.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“did you ever consider that lsd and color TV arrived for our consumption around the same time? Here comes all this explorative color pounding, and what do we do? we outlaw one and fuck up the other.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“that's ONE thing that's wrong with intellectuals and writers - they don't feel a hell of a lot except their own comfort or their own pain. which is normal but shitty.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“cunt and Kant and a happy home”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“the free soul is rare,but you know it when you see it- basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“I have met free man in the strangest of places and at ALL ages.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“I was the only one without. you could hit bottom and then find another bottom. balls.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Perché sfotti così la tua bellezza?" le chiesi."Perché non ci vivi insieme, e via?"
"Perché la gente pensa ch'è tutto quel che ho. La bellezza non è niente, la bellezza non dura. Non lo sai quanto sei fortunato, tu, a essere brutto, che se a qualcuno gli piaci, così sai che è per qualche cosa d'altro.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“I emit, I hiss a rather tired and gentle word like "shit", then tear this page from the machine. it's your.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“to whom it may concern: please phone me for appointments when you want to see me. I will not answer unsolicited knocks upon the door. I need time to do my work. I will not allow you to murder my work. please understand that what keeps me alive will make me a better person toward and for you when we finally meet under easy and unstrained conditions.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Don't you wish you were Charles Bukowski? I can paint to. lift weights. and my little girl think that I am god. then other times, it's not so good.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“«Καθίσατε να σκεφτείτε στα σοβαρά ότι το LSD και η έγχρωμη τηλεόραση εμφανίστηκαν στην αγορά σχεδόν ταυτόχρονα; Καταφθάνει αυτός ο εκρηκτικός βομβαρδισμός χρωμάτων, κι εμείς τί κάνουμε; Κηρύττουμε παράνομο το ένα και γαμούμε τελείως το άλλο... »”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

“Man is the victim of an environment which refuses to understand his soul.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Tales of Ordinary Madness

About the author

Popular quotes

“Champagne, m'lord?'
'Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.'
Smith's face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His bearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word 'champagne' used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question—these ravings, almost—might mean. Nothing good could come of it. This was a disastrous way to talk. That was his unspoken message so far as champagne was concerned. After a long pause, he at last shook his head.
'I doubt if there is any champagne left, m'lord.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“But her eyes would look cold, though her voice might be gentle, and her
hand when it fondled would be tentative, unwilling. The hand would be
making an effort to fondle, and Stephen would be conscious of that
effort. Then looking up at the calm, lovely face, Stephen would be filled
with a sudden contrition, with a sudden deep sense of her own
shortcomings; she would long to blurt all this out to her mother, yet
would stand there tongue-tied, saying nothing at all.”
― Radclyffe Hall, quote from The Well of Loneliness

“The dead once lived but the living have not yet died...”
― Daniel Waters, quote from Generation Dead

“I don't like anybody or anything," said Lucinda.

Yes, you do;--you like horses to ride, and dresses to wear.”
― Anthony Trollope, quote from The Eustace Diamonds

“Do you think you're walking out on me, on your life, because you defended yourself against a monster?"

"I killed my father."

"You killed a fucking monster. You were a child. Are you going to stand there, look me in the face, and tell me that child was to blame?"

She opened her mouth, closed it. "It's not a matter of how I see it, Roarke. The law--"

"The law should have protected you!" With visions dancing evilly in his head, he snapped. He could all but hear the tight wire of control break. "Goddamn the law. What good did it do either one of us when we needed it most? You want to chuck your badge because the law's too fucking weak to care for it's innocents, for it's children, be my guest. Throw your career away. But you're not getting rid of me.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Immortal in Death

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.