Life & Wisdom Quote by Charles Bukowski

Bukowski’s stuttered insistence - "We must.. We must" - isn’t just emphasis; it’s a man forcing resolve into existence mid-sentence, like someone steadying himself against the wall of his own life. He rarely trafficked in uplifting bromides without a hangover attached, so the line lands less as inspiration and more as survival doctrine. "Darkness" in Bukowski isn’t a tasteful metaphor. It’s rent due, cheap liquor, shame, dead-end jobs, the private humiliations that don’t become plot points. It’s also the cultural darkness of mid-century American grind: a prosperity story that left plenty of people outside the frame.

The key move is "our own". He’s not talking about borrowed illumination: religion, institutions, self-help, romantic rescue. Bukowski’s worldview treats those as unreliable landlords. The subtext is brutal autonomy. No one is coming. If you want a flare in the tunnel, you strike it yourself, even if your hands are shaking.

That’s why the line works: it’s a demand disguised as encouragement. It doesn’t deny the darkness; it assumes it as the baseline condition. The "must" is moral pressure without moralism - a rare trick. Coming from a poet famous for turning squalor into plainspoken music, it’s also an aesthetic credo: art as a DIY lantern. Not purity, not transcendence - just enough light to keep moving, and maybe to show someone else the way out.