Charles Bukowski On Creativity, Poetry, and Becoming a Writer

That most men don't gamble with their lives or their creativity is not my fault. And it makes for dull writing and dull writers.

Poetry has long been an in-game, a snob game, a game of puzzles and incantations. It still is, and most of its practitioners operate as professors in our safe and stale universities.

I'd never advise anybody to become a writer, only if writing is the only thing which keeps you from going insane. Then, perhaps, it's worth it.

Charles Bukowski, 1988