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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“This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. ”
― Plato, quote from Timaeus/Critias
“But time does heal. Not like we think it does, not like we would—from the front—but more from the back or side or someplace we can’t see it coming. It bubbles up beneath and rises all around.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Where the River Ends
“Fall colors are funny. They’re so bright and intense and beautiful. It’s like nature is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary.”
― Siobhan Vivian, quote from Same Difference
“Like all stories of creators who bring life from the dead, his story began with a struggling butcher, who chased a gray cat, caught it, took off its studded collar, and slit its throat.”
― Salvador Plascencia, quote from The People of Paper
“The pain of having your dreams come true appears vividly when you realize that even if your dreams really come true, they never really come true. From birth to death it's just like this”
― Brad Warner, quote from Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality
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