“If you were still around I’d tear into your fear Leave it hanging off you In long streamers Shreds of dread I’d turn you Facing the wind Bend your spine on my knee Chew the back of your head Til you opened your mouth to this life”— Sam Shepard, Motel Chronicles (1982)
“We all need someone to look at us. we can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. the first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. the second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. they are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners. they are happier than the people in the first category, who, when they lose their public, have the feeling that the lights have gone out in the room of their lives. this happens to nearly all of them sooner or later. people in the second category, on the other hand, can always come up with the eyes they need. then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. one day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark. and finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. they are the dreamers.”— The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
“My theory is - we don’t really go that far into other people, even when we think we do. We hardly ever go in and bring them out. We just stand at the jaws of the cave, and strike a match, and ask quickly as if anybody’s there.”— Martin Louis Amis. With thanks to Whiskey River.
“Poets don’t drive. Never trust a poet who can drive. Never trust a poet at the wheel. If he can drive, distrust the poems.”— Martin Amis, from The Information
“Life is like a typographical error: we’re constantly writing and rewriting things over each other.”— Bret Easton Ellis
(via quotemadness)
“You know what I mean- the couples, the men and wives you see walking along together. The tall fat woman, and the short scrawny men. The teensy little woman, and the big fat guys. The dames with lantern jaws, and the men with no chins. The bowlegged wonders, and the knock-kneed miracles. The… I’ve laughed- inside, that is- until my guts ached. It’s almost as good as dropping in on a Chamber of Commerce luncheon where some guy gets up and clears his throat a few times and says, “Gentlemen, we can’t expect to get anymore out of life than what we put into it…” (Where’s the percentage in that?) And I guess it- they- the people- those mismatched people- aren’t something to laugh about. They’re really pretty tragical. They’re not stupid, no more than average anyway. They’ve not tied up together just to give jokers like me a ban. The truth is, I reckon, that life has played a hell of a trick on ‘em. There was a time, just for a few minutes maybe, when all differences seemed to vanish and they were just what each other wanted; when they looked at each other at exactly the right time in the right place and under the right circumstances. And everything was perfect.”— The Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson
“A man can break every commandment and the world still will lend him a hand Yet, a girl that has loved, but un-wisely is an outcast all over the land”— Bonnie Parker