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
He asked, "what makes a man a writer?" "well," I said, "it's simple, it's either you get it down on paper or you jump off a bridge. writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate they stop being writers." "are you desperate?" "I don't know.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the desperation that can drive a writer's creativity.
In this quote, Charles Bukowski articulates the struggle of writers and highlights how the urgency of expression is often born from desperation. He suggests that writing is an outlet for intense emotions, and when that sense of urgency diminishes, so does the act of writing itself, posing a provocative question about the nature of desperation in the creative process.
Themes
WritingDesperationCreativityArtExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a seminar on creativity, you could reference this quote to discuss the emotional struggles writers face.
More from Charles Bukowski
All quotes →when I am feeling low all i have to do is watch my cats and my courage returns
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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.
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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.
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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
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