Averin > Averin's Quotes

“You know, Henry, we're the only people who get born into the enemy camp. I mean, black babies get born into black families, Jewish babies get born into Jewish families, but gay babies, we get born into straight families. How we survive it all is a miracle.”
― Michael Nava, The Hidden Law

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”
― Werner Herzog

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Tattooists are the new priests for the fucked-up and the thrown away. They speak the language of symbol, and administer penance in tiny metallic lashes.”
― Skyler White, and Falling, Fly

“I often feel like I want to think something but I can't find the language that coincides with the thoughts, so it remains felt, not thought. Sometimes I feel like I'm thinking in Swedish without knowing Swedish.”
― Peter Cameron, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

“…he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”
― Machiavelli Niccolo, The Prince

“And what right do you have to judge me? He was nothing to you but a drink."
"No," I said. "I loved him."
She looked away from me. A moment later she said, "I have never understood homosexuality. I can't picture what you men do with each other."
"I could tell you but it would completely miss the point.”
― Michael Nava, The Little Death

“Mostly I just kill time," he said, "and it dies hard.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

“She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“You'd be amazed how much fun you can have if you get out of your own head. The problem is that now people are only interested in themselves. What we have is a non-voting generation. That's what they should call you guys, the non-voting generation. You think you can't fix anything until you fix yourselves. Well, let me be the first to tell you, you will never fix yourselves.
p.32 ”
― Stephen Elliott, Happy Baby

“Boys don't make passes at female smart asses.”
― Letty Cottin Pogrebin

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Sin ought to be something exquisite, my dear boy.”
― Emile Zola

“The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat...”
― Edward Lear

“It was a good thing Ridge was mighty fond of Tug or he’d probably have killed him by now.
As it was, it had been touch and go for a little while that morning. But killing your lover on Christmas morning was so…so…heterosexual.”
― Josh Lanyon, Just Desserts

“The object of storytelling, like the object of magic, is not to explain or to resolve, but rather to create and to perform miracles of the imagination. To extend the boundaries of the mysterious. To push into the unknown in pursuit of still other unknowns. To reach into one's heart, down into that place where the stories are, bringing up the mystery of oneself.”
― Tim O'Brien

“Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.”
― Ricky Gervais

“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”
― Terry Pratchett

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!”
― Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin

“If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“The way to get better pornography is to give pornographers better sex.”
― John Preston, My Life as a Pornographer & Other Indecent Acts

“[upon hearing that the school received funding for the football field, but not for any of the arts] Well, we might never have another Great American Novel or amazing musicals written by Americans, but at least we will always be able to toss a ball between some metal posts. Our priorities are right on track.”
― Chris O'Guinn, Exiled to Iowa. Send Help. And Couture.

“Few of us could speak the other's language, but all of us had by now discovered the lodge's unique 'outside toilet'…which transcended all national barriers. The lodge owner wouldn't let you use it unless you promised to lock yourself in with a special key. Everybody thought this odd, but they understood his concern once inside. The loo was just two parallel blocks of wood laid either side of a big hole in the floor. You went in, squatted down on the blocks, felt the gust of chill air wafting up your nether regions, looked through legs, and watched the bottom fall out of your world for a sheer drop of two thousand feet! The reason for locking the door was obvious. Any unwitting interloper who swung it inwards when you were squatting over that hole was certain to knock you off your perch and straight down it. And that would be a one-way trip to oblivion. With your trousers round your ankles”
― Frank Kusy, Kevin and I in India

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
― Dorothy Parker

“When it comes to wine and buttocks, the redder, the better.”
― Danny Tyran

“Funny, how some of the most important people of your life can be dismissed as inconsequential, just because you believe the bullshit they've spent their entire lives selling.”
― Amy Lane, Knitter in His Natural Habitat

“Yet Brett's advice was to never let Henri see how much I want him because desperation scares off men more than anything else; she read this in Cosmo. But I wonder… do the same sorta rules apply when it's two guys?”
― Brian Sloan

“People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”
― Saul Bellow

“Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark.”
― Stefan Zweig, The Burning Secret and other stories