Richard Gerlach > Richard's Quotes

“Home was the place where, when you have to go there, they have to chain you up.”
― Stephen King, It

“There should be a Stage IV of black identity—Unmitigated Blackness. I’m not sure what Unmitigated Blackness is, but whatever it is, it doesn’t sell. On the surface Unmitigated Blackness is a seeming unwillingness to succeed. It’s Donald Goines, Chester Himes, Abbey Lincoln, Marcus Garvey, Alfre Woodard, and the serious black actor. It’s Tiparillos, chitterlings, and a night in jail. It’s the crossover dribble and wearing house shoes outside. It’s “whereas” and “things of that nature.” It’s our beautiful hands and our fucked-up feet. Unmitigated Blackness is simply not giving a fuck. Clarence Cooper, Charlie Parker, Richard Pryor, Maya Deren, Sun Ra, Mizoguchi, Frida Kahlo, black-and-white Godard, Céline, Gong Li, David Hammons, Björk, and the Wu-Tang Clan in any of their hooded permutations. Unmitigated Blackness is essays passing for fiction. It’s the realization that there are no absolutes, except when there are. It’s the acceptance of contradiction not being a sin and a crime but a human frailty like split ends and libertarianism. Unmitigated Blackness is coming to the realization that as fucked up and meaningless as it all is, sometimes it’s the nihilism that makes life worth living. Sitting”
― Paul Beatty, The Sellout

“Silence can be either protest or consent, but most times it’s fear.”
― Paul Beatty, The Sellout

“That’s the problem with history, we like to think it’s a book—that we can turn the page and move the fuck on. But history isn’t the paper it’s printed on. It’s memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you.”
― Paul Beatty, The Sellout

“He who grows smaller and smaller in God’s grand scheme of things, until he is invisible to all but himself.”
― Bruce Boston, Sacrificial Nights

“She was sitting on the floor, naked, in a skitter of green bills. Beyond her was the custodian, still simpering in death. She was scooping up handfuls of the green money and dropping it on top of her head so that it came sliding down along the cream-colored hair, slipping down along her shoulders and body. She was making a noise I never heard come out of a human being. It was a scream that was a whisper and a laugh that was a cry. Over and over. The noise and the scooping. The slippery, sliding bills against the rigid body.   She”
― Elliott Chaze, Black Wings Has My Angel

“When a rich man dies it is more complex than when a poor man dies. A rich man doesn't simply quit living. He quits being rich, too. Of course a poor man quits being poor when he dies, but that is not a thing to lament.  ”
― Elliott Chaze, Black Wings Has My Angel

“We call darkness our friend, but when the elders tell us stories of the Garden, they talk of the holy, unending light that was there. How did shadows become our only dwelling?”
― Tad Williams, The Heart of What Was Lost

“We survive. But when survival is the only goal, what do the survivors become? This”
― Tad Williams, The Heart of What Was Lost

“Happy, beautiful people have no need of God. It is only when people are debased by degeneracy of the mind or body that they consciously seek me out. And I desire to be sought out. Worshiped. For”
― Nicole Cushing, The Sadist's Bible

“Mom’s new husband was eleven years older than Mom. He had been Mom’s boss at the Buick dealership where she’d worked until they were married, and you could see that he was still Mom’s boss—the way he spoke to her, not exactly giving orders, never forgetting to say Please but in a tone of voice that meant there was no negotiating. Of”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Dis Mem Ber: And Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense

“if a man hurts you, and you show that hurt, and your eyes lock with his, he will never forgive you. For always you will be the girl he has hurt, which means you are the girl he can always hurt again. Mr.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Dis Mem Ber: And Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense

“I didn’t hear the song like Reverend Blessett did. To me it was the sound of summer, a slice of heaven on earth; to him it was all stinking brimstone and the devil’s leer. I had to wonder how a man of God like he was could hear Satan’s voice in every word. Wasn’t God in control of everything, like the Bible said? If God was, then why was Reverend Blessett so scared of the devil?”
― Robert McCammon, Boy's Life

“I couldn’t understand how one human bein’ could do that to another. I couldn’t understand that kind of hate. I mean … what road do you take to get there? What is it that has to get inside you and twist your soul so much you can take a human life as easily as flickin’ a fly?”
― Robert McCammon, Boy's Life

“That boy. That stupid little foolish boy took their money, and he ran. Back to Zephyr, back to the clean hills, back where he could think. And then that book came out, with the boy’s name on it, and he saw that cover and knew he had taken his child and he had dressed that beautiful child up like a prostitute and now only people who craved ugliness wanted her. They wanted to wallow in her, and use her up and throw her away because she was only one of a hundred thousand and she was crippled. And that boy … that boy had done it to her. That evil, greedy boy.” His”
― Robert McCammon, Boy's Life

“Our Grandfathers which art in chaos, Fallow be thy names. Thy kingdom scour, Thy will devour the earth, and hell, and heaven.’ Here at the end of everything, this is all the comfort or reassurance I have left to offer anyone. May it prove to be enough for my brother, and for me.”
― Matt Cardin, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP