"Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust"
About this Quote
The line about teaching is a jab at institutions that sell certainty. Workshops and syllabi depend on the idea that writing is transferable, that the mysterious part can be systematized. Bukowski's subtext is harsher: the most honest relationship with writing is unstable, private, and humiliating, which makes it terrible classroom material and great raw material for myth.
Then he stages the nightly ritual like a low-rent liturgy: upstairs, wine bottle, typewriter waiting like a judge. He doesn't "go up there to write"; he goes up there because the typewriter is there - an admission that he's as much drawn by habit and dread as by inspiration. The comedy is bleak: fifteen minutes of staring becomes a moral crisis. "Hit the dust" lands like a boxer talking about the one punch that ends a career, except the opponent is his own silence. In context, this is Bukowski's whole project: making art out of the fear that the art might stop, and turning that fear into a kind of brutal credibility.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bukowski, Charles. (2026, February 10). Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/writing-is-something-that-you-dont-know-how-to-do-185226/
Chicago Style
Bukowski, Charles. "Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust." FixQuotes. February 10, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/writing-is-something-that-you-dont-know-how-to-do-185226/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust." FixQuotes, 10 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/writing-is-something-that-you-dont-know-how-to-do-185226/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
