American - Author | August 16, 1920 - March 9, 1994
The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
Charles Bukowski
TimeDemocracyVotingYouVoteTake
Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.
FearAngerSadnessFaceFactsFeel
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.
LoveAloneDieCircusNothingUp
Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: 'Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?' They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.
MomentJobBossMeSpeakPosing
Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you're feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you'll feel better because they know that everything is just as it is. There's nothing to get excited about. They just know. They're saviours.
GoodCatsBetterFeelYouLook
Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.
LivePeopleCrazyGoNeverHorrible
An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
ArtSimpleArtistIntellectualWay
I don't like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.
WrongKindJailGotLikeBars
If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.
SoulLosingYouLoseKnowLeft
I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like to be shaped by society.
I AmRelaxSocietyMoralsRules
Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.
GoodBadMoreTasteGood TasteThan
If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many 'bads' - bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even 'bad' white males. Only, when you write about 'bad' white males, they don't complain about it. And need I say that there are 'good' blacks, 'good' homosexuals and 'good' women?
GoodWomenYouBadWhiteSay
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