Ezra Blake > Ezra's Quotes

“I seem to myself, as in a dream,
An accidental guest in this dreadful body.”
― Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

“the skull always grinned because it knew it would emerge triumphant, that it would comprise the sole identity of the face long after vain baubles like lips and skin and eyes were gone.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“Horror is the badge of humanity, worn proudly, self-righteously, and often falsely.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Exquisite Corpse

“Atheists loved to use that term to describe some shadowy force that somehow controlled human destiny, but what the hell did they think the universe was? Did they think the stars and nebulae took an interest in their doings, and if they really meant God, why couldn’t they just say so?”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Prime

“You hold onto what you have; you do not give it up easily, even when you know it is poisoning you.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Wormwood

“It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Exquisite Corpse

“If you’re ever lucky enough to belong somewhere, if a place takes you in and you take it into yourself, you don't desert it just because it can kill you. There are things more valuable than life.”
― Poppy Z. Brite

“I press my hands against my chest, wishing I could somehow be even closer to him. I hate skin; I hate bones and bodies. I want to curl up inside of him and be carried there forever.”
― Poppy Z. Brite, Exquisite Corpse

“The need to go astray, to be destroyed, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth.”
― Georges Bataille

“I don't want your love unless you know i am repulsive,and love me even as you know it.”
― Georges Bataille

“To others, the universe seems decent because decent people have gelded eyes. That is why they fear lewdness. They are never frightened by the crowing of a rooster or when strolling under a starry heaven. In general, people savor the "pleasures of the flesh" only on condition that they be insipid.
But as of then, no doubt existed for me: I did not care for what is known as "pleasures of the flesh" because they really are insipid; I cared only for what is classified as "dirty." On the other hand, I was not even satisfied with the usual debauchery, because the only thing it dirties is debauchery itself, while, in some way or other, anything sublime and perfectly pure is left intact by it. My kind of debauchery soils not only my body and my thoughts, but also anything I may conceive in its course, that is to say, the vast starry universe, which merely serves as a backdrop.”
― Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye

“I enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could I blame myself for a sin which attracted me, which flooded me with pleasure precisely to the extent it brought me to despair?”
― Georges Bataille, My Mother / Madame Edwarda / The Dead Man

“Our only real pleasure is to squander our resources to no purpose, just as if a wound were bleeding away inside us; we always want to be sure of the uselessness or the ruinousness of our extravagance.”
― Georges Bataille, Erotism: Death and Sensuality

“Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it 'cannot be remembered'; itself, being a rememberable thing, is swallowed up in its own chaos.”
― Thomas de Quincey, Suspira de Profundis, Being a Sequel to the Confessions of an English Opium-eater

“O God, make me good, but not yet.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

“Against the background of bland colors he projected an unfadable blackness. In a world of men with harrowed faces, with smashed eyes, bloody, bruised and disfigured limbs, among the fetid, broken human bodies, of which I had already seen so many, he seemed an example of neat perfection that could not be sullied: the smooth, polished skin of his face, the bright golden hair showing under his peaked cap, his pure metal eyes. Every movement of his body seemed propelled by some tremendous internal force. The granite sound of his language was ideally suited to order the death of inferior, forlorn creatures. I was stung by a twinge of envy I had never experienced before, and I admired the glittering death's-head and crossbones that embellished his tall cap. I thought how good it would be to have such a gleaming and hairless skull instead of my Gypsy face which was so feared and disliked by decent people.
The officer surveyed me sharply. I felt like a squashed caterpillar oozing in the dust, a creature that could not harm anyone yet aroused loathing and disgust. In the presence of such a resplendent being, armed in all the symbols of might and majesty, I was genuinely ashamed of my appearance. I had nothing against his killing me.”
― Jerzy Kosinski , The Painted Bird

“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ”
― William S. Burroughs

“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on.”
― William S. Burroughs

“In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.”
― William Burroughs

“There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Place of Dead Roads

“Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.”
― William S. Burroughs, Ghost of Chance

“The face of 'evil' is always the face of total need.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Whether you like it or not, you are committed to the human endeavor. I cannot ally myself with such a purely negative goal as avoidance of suffering. Suffering is a chance you take by the fact of being alive.”
― William S. Burroughs, Letters to Allen Ginsberg 1953-1957

“Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted”
― William S. Burroughs

“in the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen”
― William S Burroughs

“In homosexual sex you know exactly what the other person is feeling, so you are identifying with the other person completely. In heterosexual sex you have no idea what the other person is feeling.”
― William S. Burroughs

“when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.”
― William S. Burroughs

“It is not the intensity but the duration of pain that breaks the will to resist.”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

“I am not a person and I am not an animal. There is something I am here for something I must do before I can go.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead