Charles Bukowski Quote
So you want to be a writer if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don’t do it.if you have to sit for hoursstaring at your computer screenor hunched over yourtypewritersearching for words,don’t do it.if you’re doing it for money orfame,don’t do it.if you’re doing it because you wantwomen in your bed,don’t do it.if you have to sit there andrewrite it again and again,don’t do it.if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,don’t do it.if you’re trying to write like somebodyelse,forget about it.if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,then wait patiently.if it never does roar out of you,do something else.if you first have to read it to your wifeor your girlfriend or your boyfriendor your parents or to anybody at all,you’re not ready.don’t be like so many writers,don’t be like so many thousands ofpeople who call themselves writers,don’t be dull and boring andpretentious, don’t be consumed with self-love.the libraries of the world haveyawned themselves tosleepover your kind.don’t add to that.don’t do it.unless it comes out ofyour soul like a rocket,unless being still woulddrive you to madness orsuicide or murder,don’t do it.unless the sun inside you isburning your gut,don’t do it.when it is truly time,and if you have been chosen,it will do it byitself and it will keep on doing ituntil you die or it dies in you.
So you want to be a writer if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand your gut,don’t do it.if you have to sit for hoursstaring at your computer screenor hunched over yourtypewritersearching for words,don’t do it.if you’re doing it for money orfame,don’t do it.if you’re doing it because you wantwomen in your bed,don’t do it.if you have to sit there andrewrite it again and again,don’t do it.if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,don’t do it.if you’re trying to write like somebodyelse,forget about it.if you have to wait for it to roar out ofyou,then wait patiently.if it never does roar out of you,do something else.if you first have to read it to your wifeor your girlfriend or your boyfriendor your parents or to anybody at all,you’re not ready.don’t be like so many writers,don’t be like so many thousands ofpeople who call themselves writers,don’t be dull and boring andpretentious, don’t be consumed with self-love.the libraries of the world haveyawned themselves tosleepover your kind.don’t add to that.don’t do it.unless it comes out ofyour soul like a rocket,unless being still woulddrive you to madness orsuicide or murder,don’t do it.unless the sun inside you isburning your gut,don’t do it.when it is truly time,and if you have been chosen,it will do it byitself and it will keep on doing ituntil you die or it dies in you.
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About Charles Bukowski
Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. He wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books during the course of his career. Some of these works include his Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window, published by his friend and fellow poet Charles Potts, and better-known works such as Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. These poems and stories were later republished by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press (now HarperCollins/Ecco Press) as collected volumes of his work. As noted by one reviewer, "Bukowski continued to be, thanks to his antics and deliberate clownish performances, the king of the underground and the epitome of the littles in the ensuing decades, stressing his loyalty to those small press editors who had first championed his work and consolidating his presence in new ventures such as the New York Quarterly, Chiron Review, or Slipstream."
In 1986, Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". Regarding his enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, "the secret of Bukowski's appeal ... [is that] he combines the confessional poet's promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."
During his lifetime, Bukowski received little attention from academic critics in the United States, but was better received in Western Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, and especially Germany, where he was born. Since his death in March 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings.