D.W. Metz > D.W.'s Quotes

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“From childhood's hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“poetry is the tombstone of experience,
nothing i write is my own.

~from "the damned”
― D.W.Metz

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“[...]the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

“And so being young and dipped in folly I fell in love with melancholy.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“Writing poetry is about learning to pare down the poem to the most essential words. Every word used has to be crucial to the poem.”
― Harley King

“I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures ...”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“The silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I alwas identify with the roaring of the diamond wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you've seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“Buddham Saranam Gocchami, I take refuge in the Buddha, Sangham, I take refuge in the church, Dhammam, I take refuge in the Dharma, the truth.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“don't stop to think of the words when you do stop, just stop to think of the picture better-and let your mind off yourself in this work.”
― Jack Kerouac, Dr Sax

“We're reaching for death
on the end of a candle
We're trying for something
that's already found us”
― jim morrison

“No man is an island... when one hurts we all hurt, we are all interconnected with each other. No one is self sustaining, we all rely on each other. By sharing, our gains are magnified and out losses mitigated, our lives are easier.”
― Angie karan

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“In youth he had felt the hidden beauty and ecstasy of things, and had been a poet; but poverty and sorrow and exile had turned his gaze in darker directions, and he had thrilled at the imputations of evil in the world around.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror at Red Hook

“Deep in earth my love is lying
And I must weep alone.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“poetry is the tombstone of experience,
nothing i write is my own”
― D.W. Metz

“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.”
― John Steinbeck, The Pearl

“Don't wait for the muse. As I've said, he's a hardheaded guy who's not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering. This isn't the Ouija board or the spirit-world we're talking about here, but just another job like laying pipe or driving long-haul trucks. Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon. or seven 'til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he'll start showing up.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana)

I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”
― Anais Nin

“Beside them, little pot-bellied men in light suits and panama hats; clean, pink men with puzzled, worried eyes, with restless eyes. Worried because formulas do not work out; hungry for security and yet sensing its disappearance from the earth. In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid any more.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22