Marcus > Marcus's Quotes

“And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son

“Think of being curled up and floating in a darkness. Even if you could think, even if you had an imagination, would you ever imagine its opposite, this miraculous world the Asian Taoists call the "Ten Thousand Things"? And if the darkness just got darker? And then you were dead? What would you care? How would you eve know the difference?”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son

“People entering the bars on First Avenue gave up their bodies. Then only the demons inhabiting us could be seen. Souls who had wronged each other were brought together here. The rapist met his victim, the jilted child discovered its mother. But nothing could be healed, the mirror was a knife dividing everything from itself, tears of false fellowship dripped on the bar. And what are you going to do to me now? With what, exactly, would you expect to frighten me?”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son

“Every adult is the creation of a child.”
― Chris Fuhrman, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

“Trouble is our only defense against boredom.”
― Chris Fuhrman, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

“The more dangerous life is, the better. Scary equals important, right?”
― Chris Fuhrman, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

“No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that's why they have godfathers.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Why should I be afraid now? Strange men have come to kill me ever since I was twelve years old.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Tom, don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That's what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“No, that's not possible," Michael said. "Killed, yes; jail, no.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."
...
Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Thus began a break of undetermined length and meaning.”
― Jacob Slichter, So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful Of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer's Life

“How could I do it, how could a person go that low? And I understand your question, to which I reply, Are you kidding? That's nothing. I'd been much lower than that. And I expected to see myself do worse.”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son

“She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother.”
― Denis Johnson

“There's so much goop inside of us, man," he said, "and it all just wants to get out.”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son

“I knew every raindrop by its name.”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son

“All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son

“But what I do I do because I like to do.”
― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

“I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.”
― P.D. James, The Children of Men

“Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.”
― P.D. James, The Children of Men

“It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we had all this sex.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“If you can't get to be uncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked. [...] live well and die happy.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

“We would rather explore the far side of the moon or the bottom of the ocean than the hidden depths within ourselves.”
― William Hart