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 writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the solitary nature of writing and the importance of personal expression over external obligations.
Charles Bukowski expresses the idea that a writer's primary obligation is to focus on their craft and create compelling work without being burdened by societal expectations or responsibilities. The imagery of being alone in bed suggests that writing is a personal and often private endeavor, highlighting the artist's need for solitude to cultivate their creativity.
Themes
WritingSolitudeCreativityArtistic ExpressionBukowski
In practice
Example use cases
In a writer's workshop to inspire students about the importance of personal creativity.
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 larger-than-life thing is definitely what I'm after. I've always drawn dark stories. Occasionally, I'll try a perfect hero, but it's a real stretch for me. I like 'em warts and all, and obsessive and weird.
Frank MillerRead
I was 12 and read my first romance novel; it was a sweeping desert saga, and I got to the end of it and was like, 'I want to go back and start all over again!' That emotional response to the book and getting to the end of a story you love is what inspires me to write the next book.
Sylvia DayRead
There was a whole language that I could never make function for myself in relationship to painting, and that was attitudes like tortured, struggle, pain.
Robert RauschenbergRead
Clothing is . . . an exercise in memory. It makes me explore the past: how did I feel when I wore that. They are like signposts in the search for the past.
Louise BourgeoisRead
How quiet the writing, how noisy the printing.
Marina TsvetaevaRead
Vinyl survived, we managed not to kill it. Knowing that you’ve taken part in this fight... You can’t imagine the happiness it brings. Every time I see a kid going out of the store with a vinyl record under the arms, my heart beats faster. Music should only be this. An intense emotion.
Jack WhiteRead