"you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment"
About this Quote
The subtext is both romantic and punitive. He’s sanctifying damage, but he’s also warning you that enlightenment, if it arrives at all, is stingy. The “bully and the demonic ladies” are stock Bukowski antagonists: authority, sex, desire, shame. They’re not characters so much as forces that rearrange your insides until you stop lying to yourself. “Run along the edge of madness teetering” isn’t a glamorization so much as an admission that clarity sits uncomfortably close to collapse when you’re living unbuffered.
Context matters: postwar American masculinity, skid-row economics, dead-end jobs, cheap rooms, the literary marketplace’s hunger for the “authentic” suffering artist. Bukowski both feeds and critiques that hunger. The triple “maybe maybe maybe” is the tell. He undercuts his own legend in real time, conceding that all this pain doesn’t guarantee wisdom - just a “tiny blinking moment” of orientation before the dark rushes back in. The intent isn’t inspiration; it’s a grim cost-benefit analysis of consciousness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
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| Source | Help us find the source |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bukowski, Charles. (2026, February 10). you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/youve-got-to-burn-straight-up-and-down-and-then-185247/
Chicago Style
Bukowski, Charles. "you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment." FixQuotes. February 10, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/youve-got-to-burn-straight-up-and-down-and-then-185247/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment." FixQuotes, 10 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/youve-got-to-burn-straight-up-and-down-and-then-185247/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
