“My face is expressionless: a thing of stone. I’m mastering this moment. She won’t see anything but what I show her.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“Men see beauty wherever they can get it. But that’s the allure of the Red Light Princess. Like any good whore, she’s whoever you want her to be.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“Men started praying to you, begging for a taste. That legend of yours spiraled out of control. You gave the people hope. They were told you were all they ever needed.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“Hannibal knew your beauty was trouble. Only bad things could come from such a pretty girl. You were made for temptation. You would be a source of jealousy and greed. Men would lust, plot and kill to claim you as their own. He decided to place you in the public domain and donate your body to the pimps as a gift to the people.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“That girl has done things to your head.'
He pats my back, 'Don’t pretend she’s not crawling inside of yours.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“They are all cheap copies and every one of them is forgotten.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“She knew every single one of us. Gave us the chance to share in her bed. We all took comfort that she was here and we were not alone. The princess had nothing but love to give.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“These poor girls are just bad impersonators. They look cheap, really. There’s nothing special about them. They are just reaching out to get noticed. They don’t want to be invisible anymore. They don’t want to get lost in crowds.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“These squatters aren’t just aliens, drifters and undesirables. They’re new world barbarians, conquering free spaces and making them their own.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“There’s fear and violence under the surface. One always follows the other.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“We build up celebrities easily here. They tower above us on the public screens: huge and terrifying and out of our reach.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
James W. Bodden
See more on GoodReads
“That's the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores--when we can ride past them at Fayette and Monroe, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway. Pale-skinned hillbillies and hard-faced yos, toothless white trash and gold-front gangsters--when we can glide on and feel only fear, we're well on the way. And if, after a time, we can glimpse the spectacle of the corner and manage nothing beyond loathing and contempt, then we've arrived at last at that naked place where a man finally sees the sense in stretching razor wire and building barracks and directing cattle cars into the compound.
It's a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it's not chance in circumstance, that opportunity itself isn't the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values--we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us.
Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkably assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now posses. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith.
Why? The truth is plain:
We were not born to be niggers.”
― David Simon, quote from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood
“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better.”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“This is how it's meant to be. It shows that everything that exists must one day change - but what is destroyed can be created again with patience and dedication.”
― Morgan Rhodes, quote from Crystal Storm
“You serve Christ by serving your husband, whether your husband deserves it or not.”
― Debi Pearl, quote from Created to be His Help Meet
“وأنا أعلم ذلك علم اليقين. إذ إنّ هذه الرؤية للعبث والخواء تولّد الفكرة القائلة إنّ الموت لايمكن أن يغدو أسوأ من هذا كله، وتُشعر المرء أنّ الحياة تعني التشبث بالجسم وأوهامه. فالمرء ينظر إلى الجسم تماماً كما ينظر نحو الأرض من سفينة فضائية، ويشعر في هذه الحالة بأن لا فائدة من العودة.”
― Colin Wilson, quote from The Mind Parasites
Pawn of Prophecy
Out of My Mind
Rant
Reaper Man
Lady Midnight
The Miraculous Journ...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
