"I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat"
About this Quote
The subtext is a classed panic that still reads contemporary. To need food, sleep, clothes is to be drafted into systems you didn’t design, then told your participation should feel like gratitude. Bukowski’s genius is making that coercion visceral without slipping into manifesto. He doesn’t dignify the job market with ideology; he names it as bodily dread. That refusal is both principled and self-destructive, which is the point: the voice is honest enough to indict itself while indicting the world.
“So I stayed in bed and drank” lands as a brutal punchline, the anti-moral. Alcohol isn’t romanticized as freedom; it’s a temporary jurisdiction change. “For the moment it didn’t have you” is an addict’s logic rendered with chilling clarity: not victory, just recess. Context matters: Bukowski’s persona was forged in postwar America’s work-and-conformity machine, chronic underemployment, skid-row rooms, and the shame economies surrounding them. The quote works because it refuses uplift. It offers the ugliest kind of relief - numbness - and shows why that can feel like the only available dignity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work |
|---|---|
| Source | "Factotum". Book by Charles Bukowski, Ch. 31, 1975. |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bukowski, Charles. (2026, February 10). I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-couldnt-get-myself-to-read-the-want-ads-the-185204/
Chicago Style
Bukowski, Charles. "I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat." FixQuotes. February 10, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-couldnt-get-myself-to-read-the-want-ads-the-185204/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I couldn't get myself to read the want ads. The thought of sitting in front of a man behind a desk and telling him that I wanted a job, that I was qualified for a job, was too much for me. Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat." FixQuotes, 10 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-couldnt-get-myself-to-read-the-want-ads-the-185204/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
