Poppy Z. Brite > Quotes

“The night is the hardest time to be alive and 4am knows all my secrets.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“You hold onto what you have; you do not give it up easily, even when you know it is poisoning you.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories

“I believe in whatever gets you throught the night. [...] Night is the hardest time to be alive. For me, anyway. It lasts so long, and four A.M.knows all my secrets.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“He has 'le coeur comme un artichaud'. Eddy fumbled for her high school French. 'A heart like an artichoke?' 'Oui. He has a leaf for everyone, but makes a meal for no one.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“There were books about how to be gay; he'd seen them in stores and libraries. Some of them even had diagrams. But there weren't any diagrams about how to fall in love with your best friend and not fuck everything up.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, The Value of X

“If you want something, you don't wait for the world to deal it out for you. You take it.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Lost Souls

“It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Exquisite Corpse

“Why bother? I was right all along: the second you make yourself vulnerable to someone, they start drawing blood.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“Delete nothing. Move nothing. Change nothing. Learn everything.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“Stare at him," said Ghost. "They won't bite you if you keep staring at them."

Steve backed away. "They bite?"

Not really. They hiss at you, mostly. The only time geese are ever dangerous is when you happen to be standing on the edge of a cliff. I heard about a guy that almost got killed that way."

By geese?"

Yeah, there was a whole flock of them coming after him. All hissing and cackling and stabbing at his ankles with their big ol' beaks. He didn't know you had to stare them right in the eye, and he panicked. They backed him right over a fifty-foot cliff."

So how come he didn't die?"

This guy had wings," said Ghost. "He flew away.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Lost Souls

“If you're a freelance writer and aren't used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.


”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“Maybe they did what they had to do to live, and tried to get a little love and have a little fun before the darkness took them.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Lost Souls

“With the first kiss his mouth will taste of wormwood.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories

“The sky is purple, the flare of a match behind a cupped hand is gold; the liquor is green, bright green, made from a thousand herbs, made from altars. Those who know enough to drink Chartreuse at Mardi Gras are lucky, because the distilled essence of the town burns in their bellies. Chartreuse glows in the dark, and if you drink enough of it, your eyes will turn bright green.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Lost Souls

“Sometimes we gotta be brave even when we're scared. We gotta not let being scared keep us from thinkin' straight. That's all brave is, boy, when you come right down to it, not lettin' the fear get you so turned around you start doin' stupid things, instead of what you know you ought to do." -From 'Night Story 1973' by PZB & CRK”
― Poppy Z. Brite