James St. James · 287 pages
Rating: (6.8K votes)
“Funny, that no matter where you are in the world, there's always someone eager to help you destroy yourself.”
“If we're all going to hell in a handbasket, we might as well make it a party on the way down”
“I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar”
“Watch out for the average--they're usually hiding something big.”
“People die all around us all the time. Drop like flies. Overdose. Aids. Sometimes they kill themselves. People come. They go. Dying is the same as rehab or moving back to Missouri. It just means I won't be seeing them again”
“and so it came to pass that i was strapped to a gurney and covered in raw liver and slabs of beef that very quickly turned rancid under the bright spotlights. there exists a videotape somewhere that documents me being wheeled about the dance floor by two burly "orderlies," while i desperately search for a bathroom big enough to accommodate the stretcher so i can do a bump of cocaine. watching me retch from the decomposing meat, and simultaneously fiend for drugs, makes for an entertaining time, indeed.
when i told my mother the extremes i went to in order to make a living, she just shook her head and said, "now don't you wish you'd finished college, dear?"
mothers are so wise, sometimes.”
“We didn't wish -- wishes are wasted...
We didn't hope -- because our future was inevitable...
And we didn't pray -- we were on our own.”
“When you let the wolves guard the hen house, there's bound to be a few chicken dinners.”
“No, Michael, I do not trust you on a boat, I do not trust you on a goat. I do not trust you here. I do not trust you there. I do not trust you anywhere.”
“It's a spooky thing to be left alone inside an angry innerverse.”
“And what do we have here? A scary monster, cowboy, and a fairy princess! Here's a hit of ecstasy, run along now.”
“So let's start at the very begining (a very good place to start...)”
“There are times when the world slips out of control. It's like an accident that is happening too quickly , and you can't stop it, you can't think about it, you have no choice but to lean back and watch as everything changes forever.”
“We're like two peas in a pod""Pity the pod”
“Just spinning around, lost in their own little world. Doing so much, accomplishing so little. How sad.”
“If letters had eyebrows, these would be arched.”
“I don’t know how you look at the inside of your head — what metaphor you choose — but for those of us with endless yawning stretches of interior and nothing but nothing to stop us from getting lost in it, drugs can be wonderfully helpful.”
“Every degree of power involves a corresponding degree of freedo from good and evil.”
“Why, oh why, must we always go through pigs to get our truffles?”
“Speaking from experience, there are people who have too much space between their ears, and given the time, do nothing but free fall forever inside their heads.”
“You always remember your first overdose.”
“Funny, that no matter where you are in the world, there’s always someone eager to help you destroy yourself. It”
“Death was easy. A piece of pie. That is the true horror.”
“But if familiarity breeds contempt, it also fosters a bond—”
“You see, I just love analogies. Give me a good old analogy any day.”
“How bloated we all are to think that our childhoods matter, that anybody really cares about our little lives.”
“Light bulbs up the ass, no big deal!" you say. "On a good night I can fit a Butterball and two sweet potatoes up my bum!"
Aye--But here's the rub:
How did these bulbs come to shine so brightly? They weren't plugged into an electrical socket...
An hour before her performance, Ida lay spread-eagle on the ground, and she had a helping hand (and how) slowly, carefully, millimeter by millimeter--INSERT A BATTERY PACK INTO HER UPPER INTESTINE.”
“Speaking from experince, there are people who have too much space between their ears, and given the time, do nothing but free fall forever inside their heads. It's a spooky thing to be left alone inside an angry inner-verse.
Drugs redirect the fall. They cushion it. Give you a parachute. Or maybe just a flashlight and scuba gear. I don't know how you look at the inside of your head-- what metaphor you choose-- but for those of us with endless yawning stretches of interior and nothing but nothing to stop us from getting lost in it, drugs can be wonderfully helpful.
For a time.”
“When I told my mother the extremes I went to in order to make a living, she just shook her head and said, "Now don't you wish you'd finished college, dear?"
Mother's are so wise, sometimes.”
“Drug addicts are so funny that way. Just spinning around, lost in their own little world. Doing so much, accomplishing so little.”
“He considered himself a sort of esoteric martyr, who'd sacrificed everything for principle. Apparently that little book had set him on a course towards political extremism, culminating in the loss of his job at the community college, as well as the breakup of his previously stable marriage. By the time he met Old Hoss, a few years later, Hiram Buckley was one of those unfortunates the normal and untroubled point at in scorn and laugh at derisively; a veritable dog that's kicked while it's down. He was, under such circumstances, a perfect companion for Abner "Old Hoss" Billingsly, one of the few people who didn't consider him a prime candidate for St. Elizabeth's, the infamous mental hospital located in the District of Columbia. Since his career in education had been so rudely interrupted, the Professor had worked his way through a series of menial, low paying jobs, which he inevitably lost due to his proclivity for preaching unwelcome and unpopular political ideas to his fellow employees.”
“No,’ answered Pen sullenly. ‘We’re not rowing. I was just . . . telling Triss something I thought she ought to do. Loudly.”
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”
“Someone once said that you should be careful what you wish for,
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because you might end up getting it. And Hayden had to be very careful. Because even wrong opportunities can come knocking at your door, and they are often disguised as the chance you've been waiting for your whole life.”
“I don’t know you, not because I didn’t ask the right questions, but because you never trusted me enough to let me in. You’re right about me, I want more. I want all of you.”
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