A Bukowski line that made you laugh out loud! (1 Viewer)

I was pretty young when I started reading Bukowski and I really didn't get a lot of the humor that he put down. As I get older, read more and lurk on this forum I can see it a bit more clearly. Hopefully.
 
The first line that comes to mind which makes me laugh just thinking about it is from the end of post office when buk explains the trapping season and when asked what he does the line goes into italics and reads trap!
 
wallclockNEW.jpg


Sometimes I laugh when something is just so damn good.
 
from Factotum (chinaski is having a conversation with manny the young chicano):

"a woman is a full-time job. you have to choose your profession."
"i suppose there is an emotional drain."
"physical too. they want to fuck night and day."
"get one you like to fuck."
"yes, but if you drink or gamble they think it's a put-down of their love."
"get one who likes to drink, gamble and fuck."
"who wants a woman like that?"
 
LOL... I've always loved that piece of dialogue...:D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
'My father's funeral was a cold hamburger'

from - Hot Water Music, The death of the father pt:1.

Quality line....ridiculous! But it gave me a laugh....and there are sooo many funny lines....we could be here a long long time.

:D
 
I feel for the lonely, I sence their need, but I also feel
that they should all
comfort each other and leave me alone.
 
"Evil evil evil man! You came here to rape me!"
"Look lady, let me by."
"THERE IS EVIL WRITTEN ALL OVER YOUR FACE!"
"Don't you think I know that? Now let me out of here!"

"The blacks love me here, Feathers. I have fooled them."
"The blacks love you?"
"They give me water. I even fuck their women. Or try to."

"YOU DON'T SMELL FIRE," I yelled, "YOU SMELL SMOKE!"
Post Office, lines whatever

One night I was drunker than usual. I refused to punch in. "This is it," I told them.

The Elf was in trauma. "How will we make it, Chinaski?"

"Ah."

"Give us one more night!"

I got his head in the crook of my arm, squeezed; his ears turned pink. "Little bastard," I said. Then I let him go.

Factotum
 
1) "He told me to get the hell out of there."
"I got the hell out of there".

2) "Nobody makes stew like you do. It's your greatest talent".
"Thanks a hell of a lot". (Barfly?)

3) "I could see the headlines: 'Man abuses young girl and sells her body to bums'". (the plane ride to New York with Cupcakes)

4) "Noble warrior, there's nothing but space between us". (the janitor scene at the LA Times building.

5) "Well, we were late because we had to baptise a dog". (from somewhere)

6) "I threw the mail onto the robes, took a swig of holy wine, sat down on the crapper and smoked a cigarette in the dark". (Post Office)

and many, many more...
 
from a P.S. in "Letters/1958-1965"

no man is an island
but why are so many of them
flecks of dirt ?

and from the poem "Back To The Machine Gun" :

...the night harness races will have to wait...
 
"Charles Bukowski : Selected Letters, Volume 1: 1958-1965"
edited by Seamus Cooney
first published in 2004
Virgin Books Ltd.

It is a great read and a great peek inside the head of Buk. (Gotta run right now, but will write more later tonight.)
 
What is this "Letters/1958-1965"? Sounds like something I want.

I believe that the Virgin Books 'Selected Letters' present in 4 volumes the same letters collected in the 3 Black Sparrow books 'Screams from the Balcony', 'Living on Luck' and 'Reach for the Sun'. Not sure if Virgin included any of the letters from 'Beerspit Night and Cursing' or 'The Bukowski / Purdy Letters' but I suspect they aren't included in those UK collections.
 
That's right... they are not. But they do put all the letters in order (unlike the BSP editions - but, then the BSP editions are nicer books).
 
"Charles Bukowski : Selected Letters, Volume 1: 1958-1965"
edited by Seamus Cooney
first published in 2004
Virgin Books Ltd.

It is a great read and a great peek inside the head of Buk. (Gotta run right now, but will write more later tonight.)

Thanks. That's the BRITISH edition, as opposed to what BS put out.
 
Thanks. That's the BRITISH edition, as opposed to what BS put out.

Yes, I have the Virgin Books letter versions also - four volumes (comprising Screams from the Balcony, Living on Luck, and Reach for the Sun):

'58-'65
'65-'70
'71-'86
'87-'94

They were at a used bookstore here, so I scooped 'em up, just so I could leave my BSP volumes in better shape. Great for reading on the crapper. Well, what Buk isn't great for reading on the crapper?:p
 
That's exactly why I bought them.
Well, sort of.
I keep one or two in the car, as our 1 year old boy is likely to fall asleep as soon as we arrive somewhere. Now I just sit in the car and read Buks letters until he wakes up.

So... the car and the crapper. :)
 
"Sunbeam" :D

this is funny. whenever i'm doing something boring and repetitive i always think of chinaski yelling out "SUNBEAM!" and everybody cracking up about it. also from the same story i think is another one of my favorite funny lines: "fluff it, motherfucker." haha! every morning in the mirror when i'm trying to figure out my hair, i say, "fluff it, motherfucker." and when biding my time, evading work, wandering around trying to look busy, i say to myself, "fluff it motherfucker."
 
Apparently, ROC, you don't spend enough time on the crapper!;)

My favorite line, amongst so very many, especially in Women, is from Ham on Rye: Whilst Buk and Red were in the pool.

"You dirty little pervert, you're trying for free grabs"...

...He grabbed my cunt!...

{and here's the line}

..."Lady," said the man, "the boy probably thought it was the grate over the drain."

I can't tell you how many times I woke up laughing my ass off about that line.
 
People always talked about the good clean smell of fresh sweat. They had to make excuses for it. They never talked about the good clean smell of fresh shit.
 
I've always liked
"Dear Mr Bukowski:
You say you began writing at 35. what were you doing before then?
E.R."

"Dear E.R.
Not writing"

from Notes....
 
I still have 1964 and 1965 to go yet, but I've found some great insights so far. He was absolutely thrilled when Jon and Louise Webb published his book It Catches My Heart In Its Hands. He sounds like a kid at Christmas writing them and thanking them. This is quite a contrast to the "indifferent Buk" who usually kept his distance and was distrustful of success, fame, etc...Also, the absolute devastation he felt over the death of Jane. He was not himself and basically couldn't write for a while afterwards. Not that this is a surprise, but you know - the "guarded,above-it-all Buk" image.... He also pours his heart out to one Ann Bauman a couple times. Sometimes in a flirtatious, romantic way, and in one instance, in a very depressed and suicidal way. Very compelling stuff. This Seamus Conney fellow arranges the material in a very readable manner. And, yes, he acknowledges that the material first appeared in Screams From The Balcony and Living On Luck.
 
The perfect description of my life:

"Was I some kind of idiot, actually? Did I make things happen to myself? It was possible. It was possible that I was subnormal, that I was lucky just to be alive."

-Post Office p. 27 just after he lost the clipboard.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top