10 Great Quotes About Poetry, Writing, and Art by Charles Bukowski

“There is something about writing poetry that brings a man close to the cliff’s edge.”

“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.”

“Writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate, they stop being writers.”

“Bad poetry is caused by people who sit down and think “Now I am going to write a poem”.

“I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being… Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.”

“Literature, you know, is difficult for the average man to assimilate (and for the unaverage man too); I don’t like most poetry, for example, so I write mine the way I like to read it.”

“Great writers are indecent people; they live unfairly saving the best part for paper. Good human beings save the world so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal. If you read this after I am dead, it means I made it.”

“Writing is like going to bed with a beautiful woman and afterwards she gets up, goes to her purse and gives me a handful of money.”

“The secret [to writing poetry] is writing down one simple line after another.”

“To me, Art (poetry) is a continuous and continuing process and that when a man fails to write good poetry he fails to live fully or well.”

—Charles Bukowski