Andrew Kaufman · 120 pages
Rating: (8.9K votes)
“There are two ways to get rid of an anxiety monster,my friend-you either have a bath or a nap.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“There is only one amount of money - just not enough.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“The Sloth would sit on his couch, paralyzed by all the things he wasn't taking care of. Then one day, a Wednesday, he just said, 'Fuck it!' He threw his hands up into the air and said, 'Fuck it!' This was the day that the sloth discovered his superpower, an amazing ability to say 'Fuck it' and really, truly mean it.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“I don't remember a single monster before I met you.' he'd told Amphibian. 'Now they seem to be all over the place.'
'You mean there wasn't anything you were afraid of?' the Amphibian had asked him.
'lots.'
'What did they look like?'
It was a funny question.
'They didn't look like anything. They were ideas,' Tom told him. 'Like not being able to pay rent, or being lonely.'
'That's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard.' the Amphibian replied.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“Okay, there's this thing you can do, a thing you can do like no other person on this planet. That makes you special, but being special ready doesn't mean anything. You still have to get dressed in the morning. Your shoelaces still break. Your lover will still leave you if you don't treat her right.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“He knocks on doors and stands there. You’d be surprised how few doors get answered”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“THE PROJECTIONIST
The projectionist can make you believe whatever she believes. If she believes interest rates are going to fall, and you have a short conversation with the Projectionist, you will too. If she believes that, no, in fact, you didn't signal when you turned left, causing the Projectionist to ram her car into the back of yours, so will you.
Her downfall began when she fell in love with the Inverse. She absolutely, 100% fell in love with the Inverse. She projected all this emotion onto him but the Inverse, being the Inverse, simply reflected the opposite of everything she was sending.
Strangely, neither the Inverse nor the Projectionist can let go of the relationship.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“We’re here,’ the Clock says.
The Perfectionist opens her eyes. She sees nothing. It’s white. All white. There’s no up. There’s no down. No horizon. Nothing. It’s just white.
‘Clock, what is this?’ asks the Perfectionist. Her voice is shaky.
‘This is the future.’
‘This is the future?’ the Perfectionist asks. Her mouth is dry. She forces herself to swallow.
‘Why is the future like this?’
‘Because it hasn’t happened yet,’ says the Clock”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“MISTRESS CLEANASYOUGO The most powerful superhero of all, the one everyone wishes they were, is Mistress Cleanasyougo. At the end of every day she folds her clothes. She never leaves scissors on the table, pens with no ink are thrown in the trash, wet towels are always hung up, dishes are washed directly after dinner and nothing is left unsaid.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“The Sloth hated himself. He considered himself lazy. He had a dead-end job and no plans to get a better one. His relationship was on-again-off-again, and he never got to the gym even though he kept paying the membership dues.
There was mould in his refrigerator and he watched reruns on TV. Sometimes he wore the same pair of socks twice in the same week.
The Sloth would sit on his couch, paralyzed by all the things he wasn’t taking care of. Then one day, a Wednesday, he just said, ‘Fuck it!’ He threw his hands up into the air and said, ‘Fuck it!’ This was the day that the Sloth discovered his superpower, an amazing ability to say ‘Fuck it’ and really, truly mean it.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“Okay, there's this thing you can do, a thing you can do like no other person on this planet. That makes you special, but being special ready doesn't mean anything. You still have to get dressed in the morning. Your shoelaces still break. Your lover will still leave you if you don't treat her right”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“Tom remembered standing there beside her, in font of that field covered in snow, and falling in love.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“I've got the love that's yours as long as you do what you're told, the love that worries it's not good enough, the love that worries that it'll be found out, the love that fears being judged and found lacking, the love that's almost - but not quite - strong enough, the love that makes you feel they're better than you”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“The Perfectionist pushed Tom onto her bed. She took off his shirt. She took off his shoes and his socks. She took off his pants. She took off his boxers.
With most guys the Perfectionist would stop there. She didn’t. She was still feeling reckless. She took off his skin. She took off his nervous system. She lifted up his rib cage. His heart beat in her hand. And there, underneath it, she found a rusted tin box. She opened it. Inside she found his hopes, his dreams and his fears. She stared at them. She was surprised to find them there and surprised at how beautiful they were. At that exact moment, the Perfectionist fell in love with Tom.”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“Okay, there's this thing you can do, a thing you can do like no other person on this planet. That makes you special, but being special really doesn't mean anything. You still have to get dressed in the morning. Your shoelaces still break. Your lover will still leave you if you don't treat her right”
― Andrew Kaufman, quote from All My Friends are Superheroes
“Joe Lon and Willard slipped out of their shirts. Willard flipped over and walked around in the dirt on his hands. Joe Lon took the bottle of whiskey out of his back pocket, set it carefully on the step of the Winnebago, checking out Susan Gender's red pants again as he did. Then he went into a steady handstand and did six dips, his nose just short of the dirt each time he went down. They both came off their hands and looked at Duffy.
"I'm impressed," said Duffy, shortly. "What the hell are you, gymnasts?"
"Drunks," said Joe Lon picking up the bottle.”
― Harry Crews, quote from A Feast of Snakes
“It took the defeat suffered by the old regime in the battle against liberalism to teach its adherents the truth that there is nothing in the world more powerful than ideologies and ideologists and that only with ideas can one fight against ideas. They realized that it is foolish to rely on arms, since one can deploy armed men only if they are prepared to obey, and that the basis of all power and dominion is, in the last analysis, ideological.
The acknowledgment of this sociological truth was one of the fundamental convictions on which the political theory of liberalism was based. From it liberalism had drawn no other conclusion than that, in the long run, truth and righteousness must triumph because their victory in the realm of ideas cannot be doubted. And whatever is victorious in this realm must ultimately succeed in the world of affairs as well, since no persecution is capable of suppressing it. It is therefore superfluous to trouble oneself especially about the spread of liberalism. Its victory is, in any case, certain.”
― Ludwig von Mises, quote from Liberalism: The Classical Tradition
“By prayer, community is created as well as expressed.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, quote from Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
“There’s stories and then there’s stories,” he said, interrupting her. “The ones with any worth change your life forever, perhaps only in a small way, but once you’ve heard them, they are forever a part of you. You nurture them and pass them on and the giving only makes you feel better.”
― Charles de Lint, quote from The Very Best of Charles de Lint
“Hear him now as he toils. He has a long garden-implement in his hand, and he is sending up the death-rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity. "Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra BOOM—" And the boom is a death-knell. As it rings softly out on the pleasant spring air, another stout slug has made the Great Change.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from A Damsel in Distress
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