Mitchell Waldman > Mitchell's Quotes

“He wakes up in a different body.

Normally when it happens you don't remember all that came before, in the prior lives. But sometimes things get screwed up, there's a flaw in the machinery, and it doesn't work that way. Or maybe it isn't a mistake, it's done for a reason. As some believe, maybe there's a reason and purpose for everything.”
― Mitchell Waldman, The Visitor

“I’m here today to talk to you about a serious, very serious topic, and it concerns me and it concerns all of you. And you know what concerns you concerns me and visa versa. We’re all in this together and all that, you know, I’m here as President because you elected me to represent you, right, after all?” He smiles widely, tucks his head down against his chest, throws his arms out to his sides, and then the chants come, and he nods his head in mock humility, “Thank you so much, I don’t deserve it, really, do I?” and the applause comes louder this time, and he laughs, shakes his head and says, “Okay, okay, maybe I do. What can I say. We’re making this nation strong again, right? That’s what we’re doing!” And more cheers, and tossed beer cans, or, at least, that’s what Ash imagines. Then the large man with the artificial hair continues: “But on to what I’ve come to talk to you today, and I know I tend to go on, but it’s important, very, so, important. Something we all need to be concerned about. And you know what that is? Aliens.” The cheers rise again and someone yells out “Get rid of all the illegals!” and he nods, but then shakes his head, waves his arms, “Yes, yes, but no, that’s true, but not what I’m talking about this time. I’m talking about, you know, the other kind, what you call the real deal, the real thing, real aliens, like the kind that come from up there,” he says, pointing to the sky. And the cheers stop and it gets almost quiet in that parking lot.”
― Mitchell Waldman, The Visitor

“Sidney Hellman doesn't remember who he was the last time around, if there was a last time. But how can he? None of us do.

Still, there are clues.

For instance, he starts seeing things. Images of events from another life. Terrible images."

--From the story "The Monster Inside," included in BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS, the new story collection by Mitchell Waldman”
― Mitchell Waldman

“This used to be a great country. Not now. Not anymore.
I was laid off from the drugstore. Worked there almost thirty years. Worked my way up from the bottom, from Stock Boy to Manager, with little in the way of education -- I didn't graduate high school, was a semester shy when my dad got sick. I ran that damned place for the owner, Bud Wilkins. Then, when Bud retired, and had no one to carry on the business, this big chain bought him out and they discarded me like a badly worn sneaker."
--From the story "After the Layoff," included in forthcoming story collection BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS”
― Mitchell Waldman

“It all started with a package placed on Borglund's doorstep at two o'clock in the morning.
But, no, really, it started before that, when tilting his head over the picket fence, the smell of gin strong on his breath, he told me about his father, how he had collaborated with the Nazis back in Holland. I was speechless, but I must have had a telling look on my face because he stood back a step and, with watery eyes, said, "What else could he have done? He had a family, seven children to support." His father had been a railroad employee, had helped the SS route trains to the death camps. To Borglund, he was like any other man trapped in a job he didn't really like. But it was different -- those trains were full of my people, my ancestors."
--From the story "The Nazi Next Door," included in the book PETTY OFFENSES AND CRIMES OF THE HEART”
― Mitchell Waldman, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart

“My dead father isn't talking to me. That he doesn't talk to me is odd, since every other spirit talks to me, they all do. But for some reason he's reticent, dumb, mute. No thoughts, no words, no sudden appearances to guide me, to give me direction or inspiration in my life and ways, good or bad. No words to explain why he was the asshole he was during his life, unavailable to me.
He's fucking silent. Still." -- From "Spirits in the Night," included in Mitchell Waldman's forthcoming short story collection, BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS.”
― Mitchell Waldman

“I don’t know whose side you’re on,

But I am here for the people

Who work in grocery stores that glow in the morning

And close down for deep cleaning at night”
― Jericho Brown

“The contract is only for advantage of the owner of business to use it as a weapon against workers.”
― Kamaran Ihsan Salih

“If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in the pockets than all the property of capitalists. . .”
― Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present

“The USA has created a system of extreme poverty for the permanently disabled by allowing social security and workers compensation to deny the majority of occupational disease claims.”
― Steven Magee

“I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
― Nick Cave

“Sometimes I don't think I've done anything to leave my mark in this world. I'm the kind of person the world leaves a mark on.”
― Chris Offutt, Out of the Woods

“{H}istory records the patterns of men's lives, they say: Who slept with whom and with what results; who fought and who and who lived to lie about it afterwards. All things, it is said, are duly recorded--all things of importance, that is. But not quite, for actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are set down, those lies his keepers keep their power by." -- Ralph Ellison, in Invisible Man”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Beauty is looking backward and urging forward, and trying desperately to pay attention to the now.”
― Lou Gaglia, Sure Things & Last Chances

“There is more beauty in truth, even if it is a dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“[W]e were fighting one another instead of those who'd sent us there. Oh, they're clever these capitalists. It's hard to beat them at their game. They've got us fooled with words like patriotism and duty and honor, and they've got us divided up into classes and religions so that each one of us figures he's better than the other.”
― Harry Bernstein

“You've been telling me you're a genius
since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean.”
― Steely Dan

“She prefers to think she became a better woman. But she has hurt her sister, and she knows it. The fact that she did it to save herself is no excuse. Nor is the knowledge that she's only done what writers do. A novelist is just a cottonmouth with a laptop.”
― Steve Yarbrough, Stay Gone Days

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
― Kurt Cobain

“The fact is, what I hated in the Church was what I hated in society. Namely, authoritarians. Power freaks. Rigid dogmatists. Those greedy, underloved, undersexed twits who want to run everything. While the rest of us are busy living - busy tasting and testing and hugging and kissing and goofing and growing - they are busy taking over.”
― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

“One of the hallmarks of our politics now is that we tend to elect those who can campaign over those who can lead;”
― Ethan Canin, America America