The track had moved down the coast a hundred miles or so. I kept paying the rent on my apartment in town, got in my car and drove down. Once or twice a week I would drive back to the ap...

I get many phonecalls now. They are all alike. “are you Charles Bukowski, the writer?” “yes,” I tell them.

I went upstairs to 409, had a stiff scotch and water, took some money out of the top drawer, went down the steps, got in my car and drove to the racetrack. I got there in time for the f...

I used to take the back off the telephone and stuff it with ra… and when somebody knocked I wouldn’t answer and if they pers… I’d tell them in terms vulgar

when I was in grammar school my parents were poor and in my lunch bag there was only a peanut butter sandwich.

this poet he’d been drinking 2 or 3 days and he walked out on the stage and looked at that audience and he just knew he was going to do it. there was a grand piano on stage and he walke...

Wagner wasn’t done with us. I was standing in the yard during gym class when he walked up to me. “I’m putting you on garbage detail until further notice.” The kids had to work off their...

had it for a year, really put in lot of bedroom time, slept upright on two pillows to keep from coughing, all the blood drained from my head

it is like this when you slip down, done like a wound-up victrola (you remember those?) and you go downtown

Then there were only 6 or 7 of us.… “How you doing on your scheme, Ch… “No trouble at all,” I said. “O.… “Yes, Woodburn.” “Listen, I don’t like to be bothe…

at exactly 12:00 midnight 1973-74 Los Angeles it began to rain on the palm leaves outside my window

you no faces no faces at all laughing at nothing—

Jr. high went by quickly enough. About the 8th grade, going into the 9th, I broke out with acne. Many of the guys had it but not like mine. Mine was really terrible. I was the worst cas...

once starving in Philadelphia I had a small room it was evening going into night and I stood at my window on the 3r…