Charles Bukowski Quotes

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

Charles Bukowski

• Experience

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Quotes to Explore

• Since 2000, I've been based in Paris at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville, curating the programme there. Internationally, it's a very open situation that goes beyond national boundaries; directors and curators move from one country to another, which has opened up the museum landscape.

  

  Hans-Ulrich Obrist
  • Up
  • Country
  • Art

• I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Good
  • Women
  • Influence

• I'm confident in who I am. I've come to a place in my life where I've accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That's just the way I've always tried to be. It didn't change when I became a star.

  

  Lady Gaga
  • People
  • Life
  • Feeling

• All who consult on doubtful matters, should be void of hatred, friendship, anger, and pity.

  

  Sallust
  • Friendship
  • Anger
  • Hatred

• If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year. I don't manage nearly that... but I have published slightly too much recently.

  

  A. N. Wilson
  • Long
  • Writing
  • Book

• I was a good decathlete until I got with a coach that really knew how to train specifically for the event... I'd really describe it as like being a juggler; you have ten balls and you're trying to get them all in the air at the same time.

  

  Dan O'Brien
  • Time
  • Good
  • Trying

• Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Man
  • Government
  • Decent

• My hat's off to Shonda Rhimes.

  

  Octavia Spencer
  • Hat
  • Off

• I wonder now how tough you have to be to get big things done.

  

  Walter Isaacson
  • Done
  • Wonder
  • Tough

• I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.

  

  Larry Bird
  • World
  • American
  • Mean

• Every time you make a film, you create a world. You make decisions about sets and costumes, and you create a universe connected to reality, but not reality itself.

  

  Ira Sachs
  • Time
  • World
  • Reality

• You can't live someone else's expectations in life. It's a recipe for disaster.

  

  Bear Grylls
  • Life
  • Live
  • Expectations

• For many decades, Myanmar was on the receiving end of very public diplomatic scoldings, often backed up by sanctions.

  

  Najib Razak
  • Up
  • End
  • Very

• It is so much more difficult to live with one's body than with one's soul. One's body is so much more exacting: what it won't have it won't have, and nothing can make bitter into sweet.

  

  D. H. Lawrence
  • Live
  • Soul
  • Sweet

• My wife watches me like a hawk.

  

  Carl Icahn
  • Me
  • Wife
  • Like

• I like second chances. I've given people second chances. You have fall-outs with friends, and forgiveness is a great thing to have. It's not easy to forgive. I definitely don't forget, but I do forgive.

  

  Odette Annable
  • People
  • Great
  • Friends

• I graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and I got the opportunity to take some on-camera classes while I was in school and met a casting director who informed me quite a bit before my move out to L.A.; it made L.A. feel possible, coming from Oklahoma and not having a family that was in the industry.

  

  Laura Spencer
  • Family
  • School
  • Opportunity

• I like writing people from a slightly sharp angle and then throwing more light on them. I think in life we see somebody and make judgments very quickly about who they are and what they are. Or we think people are boring because they appear ordinary.

  

  Rachel Joyce
  • People
  • Life
  • Writing

• There are some musicians who are talented and see themselves as some kind of natural geniuses or something because of a certain amount of natural ability. But that is often rarely the case over the long term.

  

  Pat Metheny
  • Long
  • Kind
  • Musicians

• I was once making a burger for myself at my boyfriend's house and a lyric started pouring out and I had to catch it, so I ran to another room to write it down, but then the kitchen caught fire. His cabinets were charred, and he was furious. But it was worth it for a song.

  

  Jill Scott
  • House
  • Song
  • Fire

• I feel I am a little unfit for the kind of music that is being made today. There is a big difference between what I sang earlier and what is being made now. I am not saying this music is bad, but there are too many beats.

  

  Lata Mangeshkar
  • Music
  • Today
  • Difference

• Most of my writer friends are women, and they're all extremely talented, so of course I think the state of contemporary fiction for women is pretty great. Which is to say there is a ton of amazing work out there. These women are writing hard. There's much to be said. We're on it, chief.

  

  Jami Attenberg
  • Work
  • Great
  • Writing

• As you get older, you have more and more layers of experience to forgive, more layers of heartbreak, more layers of what you might think of as failure.

  

  Marianne Williamson
  • Experience
  • Failure
  • Forgive

• Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

  

  Charles Bukowski
  • Experience