Charles Bukowski
(1920-1994)
Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best known contemporary writers of poetry and prose. To support his writing, he had jobs such as mail carrier, dishwasher, elevator operator and parking lot attendant, just to name a few. He wrote about life, success, failures, regrets often featured with sex, alcohol, drugs and violence. His gravestone has a symbol of a boxer and the words “Don’t Try” on it.
“Somebody asked me: “What do you do? How do you write, create?” You don’t, I told them. You don’t try. That’s very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks, you make a pet out of it.”
“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
“Stop insisting on clearing your head – clear your fucking heart instead.”