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
I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote advocates for unrestricted access to all substances, emphasizing personal freedom over societal restrictions.
In this quote, Charles Bukowski expresses a libertarian viewpoint advocating for the abolition of laws that restrict access to various substances. He suggests that individuals should have the autonomy to choose what they consume, and criticizes the hypocrisy of those in power who dictate what is permissible, implying that such control undermines personal freedom and agency.
Themes
FreedomSubstanceLawChoicePower
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about drug policy, this quote can be used to support the argument for legalization.
More from Charles Bukowski
All quotes →when I am feeling low all i have to do is watch my cats and my courage returns
Charles BukowskiRead
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.
Charles BukowskiRead
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.
Charles BukowskiRead
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.
Charles BukowskiRead
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
Similar quotes
. . . the fellow's got a bee in his bonnet. Thinks God's a secretion of the liver--all right once in a way, but there's no need to keep on about it. There's nothing you can't prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited.
Dorothy L. SayersRead
The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.
Jared DiamondRead
Slavery is ...an atrocious debasement of human nature.
Benjamin FranklinRead
She knew that the horse, born to serve nobly, had waited in vain for someone noble to serve. His spirit knew that nobility had gone out of men.
D. H. LawrenceRead
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
Alexander HamiltonRead
If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.
Karl MarxRead