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
you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is filled with struggles and chaos, and understanding it takes enduring hardship and madness.
In this quote, Charles Bukowski uses vivid imagery to convey the tumultuous nature of life. He suggests that one must endure various hardships and navigate through challenges—symbolized by madness and struggle—to gain even a fleeting moment of clarity and understanding about their existence. The reference to ‘burning straight up and down’ and ‘starving like a winter alleycat’ illustrates the extremes one faces in life's journey, portraying a raw and unfiltered perspective on the human experience.
Themes
LifeStruggleMadnessClarityExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
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
I'm terrified of the thought of time passing (or whatever is meant by that phrase) whether I 'do' anything or not. In a way I may believe, deep down, that doing nothing acts as a brake on 'time's - it doesn't of course. It merely adds the torment of having done nothing, when the time comes when it really doesn't matter if you've done anything or not.
Philip LarkinRead
Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you're going to be right.
Muhammad AliRead
I don’t want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning.
Temple GrandinRead
I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don't need to be blonde when I'm 60!
Taylor SwiftRead
To be able to look life in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it?
Edith WhartonRead
Dance as though no one is watching. Love as though you've never been hurt. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.
John Philip SousaRead