Charles Bukowski Quotes

I think every writer's had the experience of having a really good idea, waiting to write it, and then once you write it, you're like, "Oh I kind of got past the sell by date on this." I'm not connected to the initial spark that was the idea. A lot of that's about staying open.

It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.

Sometimes I'll go without writing for a while and I'll start to be driven nuts. I start doubting my writing ability. So I'll sit down and a dozen songs will pop out. It's fun.

I get writer's block all the time. The only way I can write what I consider to be good lyrics is to put myself through the mill.

People have talents that are different. Where does the creative flow come from - inside us or from a higher power? I don't ask any questions. I just write it down.

As authors, we know that it is very difficult to unleash one's creativity.

All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to making art. It's so ancient.

I have always found writing pleasant and don't understand what people mean by 'throes of creation.'

Writing is the starting point from which all goodness (and crappiness) flows.

I'm a bit like a sponge. When I'm not writing I absorb life like water. When I write I squeeze the sponge a little - and out comes, not water but ink.

Left to it's own devices, writing is like weather. It has a drama, a form, a force to it that shapes the day. Just as good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche. There is something very right about simply letting yourself write. And the way to do that is to begin, to begin where you are.

I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic. Inspiration is better when you can get it.

The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

If I get ideas independently of the act of writing, they never really fit. So for me, there's no hanging out, waiting for inspiration.

When I'm writing, I write. And then it's as if the muse is convinced that I'm serious and says, 'Okay. Okay. I'll come.'

Inspiration does not always precede the act of writing; it often follows it.

When I'm writing I don't dream much; it's like the dreaming gets used in the writing.

The writing part of my life never changes, because that's just when the inspiration comes.

I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years.

Being at the genesis of the creative process is definitely something I want to keep doing. It's just such a great buzz.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

Writing, for me, is a very fluid process. I sit down and wait for the words to come. They usually do - in buckets and waves. I look upon it as a blessing because the words come so easily.

Any working composer or painter or sculptor will tell you that inspiration comes at the eighth hour of labour rather than as a bolt out of the blue. We have to get our vanities and our preconceptions out of the way and do the work in the time allotted.

Creativity is an energy. It's a precious energy, and it's something to be protected. A lot of people take for granted that they're a creative person, but I know from experience, feeling it in myself, it is a magic; it is an energy. And it can't be taken for granted.

There's no writer's block; there's only distraction.