AI-generated · About the image
Set in the manner of ECM Sleeve Aesthetic, a style from Stylogeny. Two short sentences about needing to be alone. The quietest covers of the 1970s, those of the Munich label ECM, gave one still image and a few small lines of type, and left the rest empty; so does this page.
The picture is AI‑generated: not a historical work, and it holds no words of the quote.
People empty me. I have to get away to refill.
Genuine
Yes. In The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998), Journal entry of 21 September 1991.
Checked against Charles Bukowski, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, illustrated by Robert Crumb (Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1998), journal entry dated 9/21/91, p. 19, in the text of a page scan, not the image.
- Work
- The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998
- Where
- Journal entry of 21 September 1991
- Source
- Charles Bukowski, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, illustrated by Robert Crumb (Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1998), journal entry dated 9/21/91, p. 19
- Checked
- In the text of a page scan, not the image
Researched by AI. Entry updated 21 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
About this quote
The scene
A journal entry written when Bukowski was 71. The night before he had gone to a film premiere, red carpet and flash bulbs, and then to two parties, too crowded and too hot; at the bar a young man kept pressing crude talk on him until Bukowski grabbed him by the shirt front. Afterwards he reflects that he is too used to sitting in a small room making words do a few things, that he sees enough of humanity at the racetrack, the supermarket and on the freeways, that gatherings never work for him even when the drinks are free, and that he has ‘enough clay to play with’.
What it means
Being among people drains him; he has to be alone to recover, and for him that means getting back to the room where he writes.
Often misread
Shared as a general statement about introversion and self-care. That is close, but in the journal it is also a writer’s remark: crowds give him nothing he needs for his work (‘enough clay to play with’), and solitude is where he writes.
Also shared as
- The form on posters and social mediaPeople empty me. I have to get away to refill. Posted as ‘Quote by Charles Bukowski’ by the self-improvement creator Jett Franzen (@jettfranzen) on YouTube, 16 July 2026, with a caption about introversion and solitude. Where it was seen
Related quotes
- No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. C. S. Lewis
- And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. J. K. Rowling
- In the middle of winter, I was finally learning that there was an invincible summer within me. Albert Camus
- I was burning, while you came blaming me for the smell of ashes. (not found) Fyodor Dostoevsky
- It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. André Gide
Sources
- archive.org/details/captainisouttolu0000buko (The Captain Is Out to Lunch, Black Sparrow Press, 1998)
- wist.info/topic/draining (journal entry, 21 September 1991)
- en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski (not listed)
- youtube.com/watch?v=Q3_-WQ7uE5o (Jett Franzen, 16 July 2026)
Cite it
Charles Bukowski, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998), Journal entry of 21 September 1991. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/people-empty-me/ (21 October 2026).
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Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
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