Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.
Charles BukowskiChristmas poem to a man in jail hello Bill Abbott: I appreciate your passing around my books in jail there, my poems and stories. if I can lighten the load for some of those guys with my books, fine. but 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.
Charles BukowskiThe poet, as a rule, is a half-man - a sissy, not a real person, and he is in no shape to lead real men in matters of blood, or courage.
Charles BukowskiFirst paycheck I get, I thought, I'm going to get myself a room near the downtown L.A. Public Library.
Charles Bukowski