“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

—  Charles Bukowski

Last update Oct. 21, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." by Charles Bukowski?
Charles Bukowski photo
Charles Bukowski 555
American writer 1920–1994

Related quotes

Charles Bukowski photo

“We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

"The Meaning of Life: The Big Picture", Life Magazine (December 1988)
Interviews
Context: For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Charles Bukowski photo

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stonewritten. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

"The Meaning of Life: The Big Picture", Life Magazine (December 1988)
Interviews

Homér photo

“On valour's side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch who trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame.”

Homér Iliad

XV. 563–564 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Paulo Coelho photo

“A brush with death always helps us to live our lives better.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir (2005), p. 220.

Haruki Murakami photo

“Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of it. By living our lives, we nurture death.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Variant: Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.
Source: Norwegian Wood

“We are frightfully concerned with our own deaths, sometimes so much so that we forget the real purpose of our lives”

Brian L. Weiss

Source: Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives

Virginia Woolf photo

“Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living?”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Death isn't funny. Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us — us humans — death is so sad that we must laugh at it.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Will Rogers photo

“We are here just for a spell and then pass on. So get a few laughs and do the best you can. Live your life so that whenever you lose it, you are ahead.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Inscribed on the Will Rogers Memorial Building in Claremore, Oklahoma.
Variants: We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can.
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 285
We are all here for a short spell; so get all the good laughs you can.
As quoted in Civilization's Quotations : Life's Ideal (2002) by Richard Alan Krieger, p. 69
As quoted in ...

“We all need to give our lives a sense of significance, of a meaning that lives on after our deaths”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)
Context: If Kim Jong Un is Chosun, as the slogan goes, then his decline in popularity must be the state’s too? But it doesn’t work that way. We all need to give our lives a sense of significance, of a meaning that lives on after our deaths. The North Koreans get that from their nationalism, which is one with their patriotism. If they lose that, what do they have?

Related topics