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 psyche has been burned and left us senseless, the world has been darker than lights-out in a closet full of hungry bats, and the whiskey and wine entered our veins when blood was too weak to carry on
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the deep emotional and existential pain experienced in life.
In this quote, Charles Bukowski captures the profound suffering that can occur in life, suggesting that the psyche has endured intense trauma, leaving one feeling numb and lost. The imagery of a dark world and the desperation to numb pain through substances like whiskey and wine conveys the struggle against overwhelming despair and the search for relief amidst chaos.
Themes
PsychePainSufferingDespairSubstanceExistential
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about mental health, one might use this quote to illustrate the depth of emotional pain.
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
Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die.
Gil Scott-HeronRead
What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.
John WoodenRead
Overcrowding in the cities is producing a collective madness in which irrational violence flourishes because man needs more space in which to be than the modern city allows.
Gore VidalRead
Racism is endemic to the human condition, just as stupidity is. We will always have to be on guard against it. But now it is recognized as a scourge, as the crowning immorality of our age and our history.
Shelby SteeleRead
Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side.
Kurt VonnegutRead