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
We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus!
Interpretation
Life is transient, and its inherent absurdity can be likened to a circus.
This quote by Charles Bukowski emphasizes the inevitability of death for every individual, highlighting the absurdity of life. It suggests that, amidst the chaos and unpredictability of life—much like a circus—we should acknowledge our mortality and perhaps find humor in the situation.
In practice
In a speech about embracing life's challenges, you could use this quote to remind the audience of the absurd nature of our existence.
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.
when I am feeling low all i have to do is watch my cats and my courage returns
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.
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.
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.
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.
We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.
A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
Reason died in 1914, November 1914 ... after that everybody began to rave.
We must remember that Islam is not an enemy, and we have no war with Islam.
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?
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