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
What? You’d dare drink right after getting out of jail for intoxication?” That’s when you need a drink the most.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the idea that people often turn to substances in times of distress or after facing consequences.
In this quote, Charles Bukowski highlights the paradoxical nature of human behavior, suggesting that individuals may seek out indulgence or escape, such as drinking alcohol, especially after experiencing hardships or previously facing the consequences of their actions. It speaks to the struggles and contradictions of coping mechanisms in life, particularly in moments of vulnerability.
In practice
During a discussion on addiction recovery, this quote could serve to illustrate the emotional struggles people face.
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.
It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen ... wonderful things.
Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It's all funny.
If life is so critical, if Anne Frank could die, if my friend could die, children were as vulnerable as adults, and that gave me a secret purpose to my work, to make them live. Because I wanted to live. I wanted to grow up.
One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.
Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay outdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it...At last we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think.
It's absolutely amazing that I survived all the booze and smoking and the cars and the career.
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