Jake > Jake's Quotes

“And what happens then?
When?
After you're dead.
Dont nothing happen. You're dead.
You told me once you believed in God.
The old man waved his hand. Maybe, he said. I got no reason to think he believes in me. Oh I'd like to see him for a minute if I could.
What would you say to him?
Well, I think I'd just tell him. I'd say: Wait a minute. Wait just one minute before you start in on me. Before you say anything, there's just one thing I'd like to know. And he'll say: what's that? And then I'm goin to ast him: What did you have me in that crapgame down there for anyway? I couldnt put any part of it together.
Suttree smiled. What do you think he'll say?
The ragpicker spat and wiped his mouth. I dont believe he can answer it. I dont believe there is an answer. ”
― Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse”
― Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”
― John Williams, Stoner

“Young people," McDonald said contemptuously. "You always think there's something to find out."

"Yes, sir," Andrews said.

"Well, there's nothing," McDonald said. "You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school. You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you're ready to die, it comes to you — that there's nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done. Only you ain't done it, because the lies told you there was something else. Then you know you could of had the world, because you're the only one that knows the secret; only then it's too late. You're too old."

"No," Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. "That's not the way it is."

"You ain't learned, then," McDonald said. "You ain't learned yet. . . .”
― John Williams, Butcher's Crossing

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“A man without hands came to the door to sell me a photograph of my house. Except for the chrome hooks, he was an ordinary-looking man of fifty or so.”
― Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

“Limiting one’s desires actually helps to cure one of fear. ‘Cease to hope … and you will cease to fear.’ … Widely different [as fear and hope] are, the two of them march in unison like a prisoner and the escort he is handcuffed to. Fear keeps pace with hope … both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.”
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.”
― Raymond Carver, Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: Poems

“Surprisingly, Stannis smiled at that. “You’re bold enough to be a Stark. Yes, I should have come sooner. If not for my Hand, I might not have come at all. Lord Seaworth is a man of humble birth, but he reminded me of my duty, when all I could think of was my rights. I had the cart before the horse, Davos said. I was trying to win the throne to save the kingdom, when I should have been trying to save the kingdom to win the throne.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

“The freedom of birds is an insult to me.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“He wanted her the rest of his life, and failing that, he wanted permission to walk along beside her while she lived it.”
― William Gay, Provinces of Night

“don't start talkin about books or quotin poems at them. these is good folks but they ain't real crazy about readin books. just do what i do and you'll be all right.”
― William Gay, Provinces of Night

“Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos. They infest my city like roaches, and at night I feel them crawling over me.” The fat man’s fingers coiled into a fist, and all his chins trembled. “My son Wendel came to the Twins a guest. He ate Lord Walder’s bread and salt, and hung his sword upon the wall to feast with his friends. And they murdered him. Murdered, I say, and may the Freys choke upon their fables. I drink with Jared, jape with Symond, promise Rhaegar the hand of my own beloved granddaughter…but never think that means I have forgotten. The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“He lay on the bed and he felt he might never rise from it. He lay in an enormous torpor. The world was too heavy to bear and it was settling itself onto his chest. He felt old, old. Civilizations had risen and fallen in the brief time that he had lived. He felt that when the old man's head exploded across the snow he should have turned the gun on himself.”
― William Gay, Provinces of Night

“Only the middle ground of this wicked world mattered, the vast gap that stretched between, and those who were born with enough grit to brave it.”
― David Joy, Where All Light Tends to Go

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.”
― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

“you shut the door, paint the windows black, rent an electric typewriter and become the monster you always were—the writer. I’d warned them about that.”
― Playboy, Hunter S. Thompson: The Playboy Interview (Singles Classic)

“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
― Albert Camus

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”
― Albert Camus

“You asked me, 'Do you call this living?" And I answer: Yes, it is exactly what I call living. And in my best hypothetical sense, I envy it very much.”
― Frederik Pohl, Gateway

“Anyway, that's what life is, just one learning experience after another, and when you're through with all the learning experiences you graduate and what you get for a diploma is, you die.”
― Frederik Pohl, Gateway

“I'm so busy listening to the heart that I don't even hear when somebody asks me to pass the salt.”
― Frederik Pohl, Gateway

“I had asked Hunter once, when he was in a rare calm mood, 'Do you know when you're about to change? Are you aware of it?' Hunter said, 'Sandy, do you know what it's like? I'm just standing here, and I have a sense that something is about to happen. And then I start to turn my head, and it's here. The monster's here.”
― Jann S. Wenner, Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson