Craig Clevenger · 199 pages
Rating: (9K votes)
“A person’s life story is equal to what they have plus what they want most in the world, minus what they’re actually willing to sacrifice for it.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“It's taken me years of practice to learn how to act natural.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“i learned that predators don't intentionally choose the weak or old or sick. they kill what they can, which means the slow members of the pack. thus, they strengthen the very gene pool they're feeding from. the threshold for what is weak, old or sick gets raised, and the strength, speed and instincts of new generations of hunters grow. a beautiful, self-perpetuating system where evolution is the antithesis of entropy.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“When you’re in love, your brain secretes endorphins into your blood. Organic morphine leaks out of a gland in your skull, feels like a low-grade opium rush. Some people confuse the two, the head rush and the love. You think you’re in love with a person, but you’re in love with a syringe.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“...what they show tells you what they want to hide.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“I love you, I said, but not out loud.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“The combination to be on guard for is young and bored, or young and resentful. You can spot them at social gatherings, the grad students or interns who tell you about syndromes, conditions, deviances, and disorders, and they love, love, love to talk. They speak in half-sentences with a knowing smile-squint, watch you falter at the pause, and then keep talking.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“If no God, there must at least be a pattern-making demiurge.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“People can numb themselves, get used to anything.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“Carisoprodol. Comes in a white tablet like a big-ass vitamin, 350 mg of muscle liquefier for those tense, recovering athletes and furniture movers. Too much, and those relaxed muscles include your diaphragm, then your heart.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“They see my fingers, they run. Dominique. Alicia. Penny.
They see my fingers, they want their hair pulled. Alex. Renee. Kristin.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“My left hand is a Rorschach blotch all its own, a six-fingered, skin-blood-and-bone ink splatter. People see it and fly their worst fears and secret fetishes at full mast when they think they’re being discreet. They see it as strange, fascinating, ugly, beautiful, disgusting or erotic depending on what’s behind their eyes.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
“A person's life story is equal to what they have plus what they want most in the world, minus what they're actually willing to sacrifice for it.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook
Craig Clevenger
Born place: in Dallas, Texas, The United States
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“I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“When you look at this mirror I hope you'll remember that there's always another way of seeing things: that's the beginning of wisdom.”
― John Barth, quote from Giles Goat-Boy
“Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want (Bob Dylan's dad)”
― Bob Dylan, quote from Chronicles, Volume One
“Lord, grant us rest tonight, and if we must be wakeful, cheerful.”
― Robert Bolt, quote from A Man for All Seasons
“I had discovered after the Swindon game that loyalty, at least in football terms, was not a moral choice like bravery or kindness; it was more like a wart or a hump, something you were stuck with. Marriages are nowhere near as rigid - you won’t catch any Arsenal fans slipping off to Tottenham for a bit of extra-marital slap and tickle, and though divorce is a possibility (you can just stop going if things get too bad), getting hitched again is out of the question.”
― Nick Hornby, quote from Fever Pitch
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