Women by Charles Bukowski

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Description

Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last. Now, at fifty, he is reveling... read more

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Cast of Characters/Important People

Henry Chinaski: Add a description of this character.

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Memorable Quotes

“...when I was in good spiritual shape I ate off one dish and then washed it immediately.”
“Time was motionless while existence was a throbbing unbearable thing.”
“"You're good enough with the ladies", Dee Dee said, "And you're helluva writer." "I'd rather be good with the ladies."”
“I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective.They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.”
“Most people are much better at saying things in letters than in conversation, and some people can write artistic, inventive letters, but when they try a poem or story or novel they become pretentious,”
“I felt foolish paying money to go into a movie theatre and sit with other people to share their emotions.”
“And yet women-good women-frightened me because they eventually wanted your soul, and what was left of mine, I wanted to keep. Basically I craved prostitutes, base women, because they were deadly and hard and made no personal demands. Yet at the same time I yearned for a gentle, good woman, despite the overwhelming price. Either way I was lost. A strong man would give up both. I wasn't strong. So I continued to struggle with women, with the idea of women.”
“I didn't know what other writers needed;I didn't care, I couldn't read them anyway. I was locked into my own habits and prejudices. It wasn't bad being dumb if the ignorance was all your own.”
“In a sense, as much as I disliked it, education helped when you were looking at a menu or for a job, especially when you were looking at a menu. I always felt inferior to waiters (...)The waiters all read Truman Capote. I read the race results.”
“Readings diminished me. They were soul-sucks.”
“I never pump up my vulgarity. I wait for it to arrive on its own terms.”
“Love is a form of prejudice. I have too many other prejudices.”
“"I think people should take the time to get to know each other." "Sometimes there's not that much time."”
“That was the way it was with people. The longer you knew them the more their eccentricities showed. Sometimes their eccentricities were humorous - in the beginning.”
“People diminished me, they sucked me dry. "Humanity, you never had it from the beginning". That was my motto.”
“"Do you believe in bravery?" (...) "It makes me feel good. It's a matter of style in the face of no chance at all."”
“It was almost disappointing because it seemed when stress and madness were eliminated from my daily life there wasn't much left you could depend on.”
“Love was for guitar players, Catholics and chess freaks.”
“It felt good to be out of the U.S.A. There was a real difference. The women looked better, things felt calmer, less false.”
“I've always been a slow starter.”
“There were tricks you could play with a Coleman lantern. Like turning it off and then on again and watching the heat of the wick relight it.”