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.
Charles BukowskiRead
Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: There sat the 18-pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Thanksgiving is a complex time that reflects survival amidst chaos and family dynamics.
In this quote, Charles Bukowski encapsulates the essence of Thanksgiving as not just a celebration, but a reflection of enduring life's challenges—wars, inflation, and personal struggles—while surrounded by the chaotic yet familiar gatherings of family. He depicts a vivid image of the holiday, filled with both humor and melancholy, portraying it as a neurotic mix of people and experiences that ultimately emphasizes the complexities of family relationships during such a time.
Themes
ThanksgivingFamilyChaosSurvivalGathering
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a Thanksgiving dinner to highlight the humorous yet true nature of family gatherings.
More from Charles Bukowski
All quotes →when I am feeling low all i have to do is watch my cats and my courage returns
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Charles BukowskiRead
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