Betting on the Muse Quotes

“The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I
think that the
world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just
cats and
rain, rain and cats, very nice, good
night.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“a good book
can make an almost
impossible
existence,
liveable

( from 'the luck of the word' )”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“It is possible to be truly mad and to still exist upon scraps of life.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I was only photographing in words the reality of it all.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“how can you be true and
kind at the same
time?

how?”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“sleeping in the rain helps me forget things like I am going to
die and you are going to die and the cats are going to die
but it's still good to stretch out and know you have arms
and
feet and a head, hands, all the parts, even eyes to close
once
more, it really helps to know these things, to know your
advantages
and your limitations, but why do the cats have to die, I
think that the
world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just
cats and
rain, rain and cats, very nice, good
night.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“most days go
nowhere
but the avoidance
of pain and
dissolution are
lovely.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“the people are the biggest
horror show on earth,
have been for
centuries.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“Don't you go to the movies?"
"Mostly just to eat popcorn in the dark.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“You were destroyed by what you befriended.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I could never accept
life as it was,
I could never gobble
down all its
poisons
bu there were parts,
tenuous magic parts
open for the
asking.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“then sit down and write
or stand up and
write
but write
no matter what
the other people are
doing,
no matter what
they will do to
you.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“a life can change in a tenth of
a second.
or sometimes it can take
70
years.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I can see where
creation often
stops while the
body still lives
and often
does not care
to.

the death of life
before life
dies.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I knew exactly what I
was doing: I was
doing nothing.
because I knew there
was nothing
to do.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“your best men are
drunks and your worst men are
locking them
up,
your best men are killers and
your worst men are
selling them
bullets”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I am a joke told
again.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“(the whole world is at the
throat of the world,
everybody feels angry,
short-changed, cheated,
everybody is despondent,
disillusioned.)

I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“being alone you decided, was a
magnificent miracle.
nothing else made any
sense at all.

—escape”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“anything,
compared to the people,
is a foundation worth
searching for.

anything.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“gratuitous masturbation
of the
psyche.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“shot in the eye
shot in the brain
shot in the ass
shot like a flower in the dance

amazing how death wins hands down
amazing how much credence is given to idiot forms of
life

amazing how laughter has been drowned out
amazing how viciousness is such a constant

I must soon declare my own war on their war
I must hold to my last piece of ground
I must protect the small space I have made that has
allowed me life

my life not their death
my death not their death

this place, this time, now
I vow to the sun
that I will laugh the good laugh once again
in the perfect place of me
forever.

their death not my life.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I went into the men's room and stared in the mirror at my face in disgust. I looked like I knew something, but it was a lie, I was a fake and there's nothing worse in the world than when a man suddenly realizes and admits to himself that he's a phoney, after spending all his time up to then trying to convince himself that he wasn't. I stared at all the sinks and pipes and bowls and I felt like them, worse than them: I'd rather be them.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“a good book
can make an almost
impossible
existence,
liveable

for the reader
and
the writer.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“I entered the world
once
more,
drove down the
hill
past the houses
full and empty
of
people,
I saw the mailman,
honked,
he waved
back
at me.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“bulls strut in pinwheel glory,
rockets stun the sky,
but I don't know
quite what to make
of the dead flowers
of myself,
whether to dump them
out of the bowl
or
press them between
these blank pages
and go on;
well, all grief comes down
to hard death
and weeping finally ends.
thank the god
who made
it.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories

“the best writers have said very little and the worst, far too much.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse

“defining the magic a good poem is like a cold beer when you need it, a good poem is a hot turkey sandwich when you’re hungry, a good poem is a gun when the mob corners you, a good poem is something that allows you to walk through the streets of death, a good poem can make death melt like hot butter, a good poem can frame agony and hang it on a wall, a good poem can let your feet touch China, a good poem can make a broken mind fly, a good poem can let you shake hands with Mozart, a good poem can let you shoot craps with the devil and win, a good poem can do almost anything, and most important a good poem knows when to stop.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse

“the sheep in centuries past audiences at symphony concerts were not afraid to act out their displeasure at works which offended them. in our time I have either attended or listened to hundreds of concerts and never have I heard an audience express even the mildest displeasure with any work. have our musical artists improved to such an extent? or is it the decay of courage, the inability of the mass mind to reach its own decisions? not only in the world of music but in the other world? the next time you hear a symphony concert note the obedient applause, the death of the bluebird, the shading of the sun; the hooves of the horses from hell pounding on the barren ground of the human spirit.”
― Charles Bukowski, Betting on the Muse