QuoteProject
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 Bukowski
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects the deep connection between beauty and despair in Bukowski's mind.

Charles Bukowski's quote exposes the intricate relationship between appreciation of natural beauty and the contemplation of darker thoughts. It suggests that moments of reflection near bodies of water or while crossing bridges trigger profound feelings of vulnerability or existential despair, highlighting how beauty can coexist with pain in life.

Themes

SuicideBeautyDespairReflectionExistentialism

In practice

Example use cases

During a mental health seminar to highlight the complexity of emotions.

More from Charles Bukowski

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
He asked, "what makes a man a writer?" "well," I said, "it's simple, it's either you get it down on paper or you jump off a bridge. writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate they stop being writers." "are you desperate?" "I don't know.
Charles BukowskiRead

Similar quotes

You discarded most of the lies along the way but held on to the one that said life mattered.
Stephen KingRead
Although sometimes the morbid is also the transcendent, the transcendent cannot be reduced to the morbid.
Siri HustvedtRead
Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?
EpictetusRead
No one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created for us.
David HilbertRead
The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.
Thomas PaineRead
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
Bertrand RussellRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Charles Bukowski | QuoteProject