I can never drive my car over a bridge without thinking of suicide. I can never look at a lake or an ocean without thinking of suicide.
I always started a job with the feeling that I'd soon quit or be fired, and this gave ma a relaxex manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the idea that an attitude of detachment and acceptance can lead to unexpected confidence and success.
Charles Bukowski's quote reflects a unique perspective on job performance and attitude. By approaching work with a mindset of impermanence—where quitting or being fired feels like an inevitable possibility—he found that this aloofness allowed him to perform with a relaxed confidence. This paradoxical approach, where perceived nonchalance is mistaken for competence, suggests that letting go of the fear of failure can sometimes enable individuals to perform better and navigate their roles more effectively.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used to inspire employees during a team-building workshop.
More from Charles Bukowski
All quotes →when I am feeling low all i have to do is watch my cats and my courage returns
The masses are always wrong...Wisdom is doing everything the crowd does not do. All you do is reverse the totality of their learning and you have the heaven they're looking for.
I'm going to open another vottle. not a vottle, but a bottle. you open it and I'll drink it. and you try to write as much as I did without falling off of your chair.
To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.
I lapsed into my pathetic cut-off period. Often with humans, both good and bad, my senses simply shut off, they get tired, I give up. I am polite. I nod. I pretend to understand because I don’t want anybody to be hurt. That is the one weakness that has lead me into the most trouble. Trying to be kind to others I often get my soul shredded into a kind of spiritual pasta. No matter. My brain shuts off. I listen. I respond. And they are too dumb to know that I am not there.
Similar quotes
He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
Tantra says be real, be authentic to yourself. Your happiness is not bad; it is good. It is not sin! Only sadness is sin, only to be miserable is sin. To be happy is virtue because a happy person will not create unhappiness for others. Only a happy person can be a ground for others' happiness.
Do not underestimate the human being, who sometimes appears so simple. Even with sight as sharp as an eagle, a mind as sharp as a razor, senses more powerful than gods, hearing that can catch the music and the lamentations of life, your knowledge of humanity will never be total.
It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.
Compassion for myself is the most powerful healer of them all.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same.