Charles Bukowski Quotes

Personal’s not the same as important. People just think it is.

You’re too important to just … die.” He shakes his head. He won’t even look at me—his eyes keep shifting across my face, to the wall behind me or the ceiling above me, to everything but me. I am too stunned to be angry. “I’m not important. Everyone will do just fine without me,” I say. “Who cares about everyone? What about me?

Maybe it's not as important to you as it was for me, but that's not for you to decide.

I think the work is always going to be much better when it's important and personal to you.

When you're talking about the thing that is most important to someone, they're liable to feel something strong.

There are many things I think about that never get to the point of becoming serious. In other words, I try to talk myself out of writing, sometimes for many years, and when I run out of arguments, I write.

You may never have proof of your importance but you are more important than you think. There are always those who couldn’t do without you. The rub is that you don’t always know who.

And then she frowned, and shook her head, then put her arms around him once more, pressing her face into his shoulder, making a noise that sounded almost like rage. 'What's up?' he asked. 'Nothing. Oh, nothing. Just...' She looked up at him. 'I thought I'd finally got rid of you.' 'I don't think you can.' he said

I don't think you're weak," Jared said. "I want to guard you because you are important to me. Because you are - God, this is going to sound so stupid, I can never think of a way to say it - you are precious. I can never think of how to describe the value you have to me, because all the words for value suggest that you belong to me, and you don't.

The love we'd shared always burned within me, no matter how often I told myself to move on, no matter how much the world did think I'd moved on.

Everyone wears a sign that says "Make me feel important

Of course, then you nearly crushed to death in front of my eyes. Later I thought of a perfectly good excuse for why I acted at that moment - because if I hadn't saved you, if your blood had been spilled there in front of me, I don't think I could have stopped myself from exposing us for what we are. But I only thought of that excuse later. At the time, all I could think was, 'Not her.

Our lives are so important to us that we tend to think the story of them begins with our birth. First there was nothing, then I was born...Yet that is not so. Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole. - Vida Winter

I definitely, at times, felt the pressures of life similar to the pressures anyone would feel growing up. The only difference was that maybe more people were aware of mine. But, if anything, I changed the pressure from negative to positive. So, instead of thinking everybody wanted to see me fail, I decided everybody wanted to see me win, since I wanted to see myself win.

I think that story wins out over acting and that the thing as a whole is more important than the performances therein.

If you can't forgive yourself, you think you're never going to be able to forgive yourself.

Dear Diary, Today I tried not to think about Mr. Knightly. I tried not to think about him when I discussed the menu with Cook... I tried not to think about him in the garden where I thrice plucked the petals off a daisy to ascertain his feelings for Harriet. I don't think we should keep daisies in the garden, they really are a drab little flower. And I tried not to think about him when I went to bed, but something had to be done.

Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

Inside your own self pity there you swim, in sinking down to drown her voice still haunts you, and only with your laughter can you win.

I know that sometimes you have to reason with yourself and say, "This is just TV" or "This is just a movie," but I think also as an actor it's your job to find it so very important.

Everyone in my life thinks I'm competitive because I want to win, but it comes from me wanting everyone to have a good time. And when I see that people aren't enthused, I try to make it really uncomfortable for everyone so they get enthused and want to play hard.

It takes me awhile to find something that I'm passionate about. I'm reading a lot and thinking a lot, and torturing myself a lot because I'm feeling really guilty for not writing something today.

I smile, now, thinking: we all like to think we are important enough to need psychiatrists

It's just a matter of willpower. The day you decide it's over, it's over. You never get over it.

You're dead," I repeated. "So why are you in my dream?" He raised the bill of his olive drab ball cap with one finger. " Good question. Morbid, isn't it?" "What?" "Dreaming about dead peolpe. Creepy. You ever see a therapist about that?" "I'm not -" Even in dreams, I couldn't win an argument. Even when he was dead.