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
And don't forget: time is meant to be wasted, love fails and death is useless.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects a cynical view on life, emphasizing the inevitability of death and the transient nature of love and time.
In this quote, Charles Bukowski presents a stark and somewhat nihilistic perspective on existence. He suggests that time, often deemed precious, is often squandered; love, while cherished, is prone to failure; and death, a natural conclusion of life, holds no ultimate significance. Bukowski's words invite contemplation about the superficiality of societal values and provoke a deeper understanding of our priorities and the fleeting nature of human experience.
Themes
TimeLoveDeathExistenceLifeNihilism
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life, one might use Bukowski's quote to illustrate a point about the futility of cherished ideals.
More from Charles Bukowski
All quotes βwhen 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, canβt 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 donβt 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
Every one of our sinful actions has a suicidal power on the faculties that put that action forth. When you sin with the mind, that sin shrivels the rationality. When you sin with the heart or the emotions, that sin shrivels the emotions. When you sin with the will, that sin destroys and dissolves your willpower and your self-control. Sin is the suicidal action of the self against itself. Sin destroys freedom because sin is an enslaving power.
Timothy KellerRead
But time is yet another of God's creations, and as such, it has a life of its own.
Menachem Mendel SchneersonRead
If you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened.
Robert M. PirsigRead
All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
Success has always been the greatest liar - and the "work" itself is a success; the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer is disguised by his creations, often beyond recognition; the "work," whether of the artist or the philosopher, invents the man who has created it, who is supposed to have create it; "great men," as they are venerated, are subsequent pieces of wretched minor fiction
Friedrich NietzscheRead
What is essential, therefore, is not that you no longer believe, but that God continues to believe in you.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead