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
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the struggle of making choices in a flawed society, illustrating the human condition of feeling diminished by negative experiences.
Charles Bukowski's quote delves into the existential dilemmas faced by individuals in a society where every choice seems to lead to degradation or loss. It captures a sense of disillusionment with the world, where people are forced to choose between flawed options, ultimately leading to a sense of emptiness and frustration. The mention of a 'nation of assholes' emphasizes a collective societal failure, suggesting that common behaviors and decisions contribute to this pervasive malaise, leaving individuals feeling as though they have been ground down to nothing by their circumstances.
Themes
ChoicesSocietyDisillusionmentHuman ConditionExistentialism
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about societal pressures and the impact of conformity on personal choices.
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
A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.
Richard DawkinsRead
You have no more anger when you are all love, bliss, infinite existence. . . .
Swami VivekanandaRead
All the particular moral judgments we intuitively make are likely to derive from discarded religious systems, from warped views of sex and bodily functions, or from customs necessary for the survival of the group in social and economic circumstances that now lie in the distant past.
Peter SingerRead
What view is one likely to take of the state of a person's mind when his speech is wild and incoherent and knows no constraint?
Seneca The YoungerRead
The justification and the purpose of freedom of speech is not to indulge those who want to speak their minds. It is to prevent error and discover truth. There may be other ways of detecting error and discovering truth than that of free discussion, but so far we have not found them.
Henry Steele CommagerRead
The new freedom of expression brought by the Internet goes far beyond politics. People relate to each other in new ways, posing questions about how we should respond to people when all that we know about them is what we have learned through a medium that permits all kinds of anonymity and deception.
Peter SingerRead