The Dead Do Not Improve Quotes

“Love and cities are always inextricably entwined. There's no restaurant or corner store or run-down dive in any city that doesn't double as a monument for a lost love. I think that's why we always stop and stare whenever we come across a girl crying in public. We sense the imprint of a memory being pressed onto the sidewalk, onto the building contours, onto the names of the streets.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“The worst have scraped out the mantle of the best and wear it around as something real. It takes no genius to see that. But I moved to San Francisco because the masquerade of kindly gestures is, at least, kind. And it remains kind. And all the people who would sit back and comment on the garishness of the costumes, the hollowness of the dialogue, the lack of divine conviction, well, all those people are either dead or fifteen years old.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“none of us really ever fall out of love with the first woman who agrees to return us the favor—he could not recognize the totality of that younger self who had sat entranced by all that had provided kindling for that little blaze.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“...the kindness you can only hope happens to your children, because while you can teach a person to act kindly, you can't really teach warmth.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“I don't think I'll ever forget it. Me, standing there, humiliated, worried vaguely about how the unflattering fabric of my bathing suit was clinging to my shrinking, stereotyped penis, Chad making friends, and this kid brings me a fucking quesadilla in a plastic bag.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“Up top, we saw a party on the verge of a breakout. The three respectful men were, in fact, security guards. On the far edge of the plot, four scraggly dudes were fiddling around with a PA. A guitar and a drum set lay in the grass behind them. A stand-up bass had been propped up against a gravestone. Surrounding a folding table stocked with handles of Costco booze were six or seven men with fuck-you-Dad piercings—septa, cheeks, foreheads—and tribal facial tattoos. I counted seven, maybe fifteen dogs running around, yapping at one another, and at least twenty or so old hippies, each one dressed in his or her referential, Harold and Maude best, smiling and drinking out of red plastic cups.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“Litost. The torment that arises when we unexpectedly encounter our own expansive misery.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“Finch asked, "Are they Christians or something?"
Hofspaur chortled and shook his head. "No. They're not Christians. I don't even know what the fuck to call them. They're like communist Buddhist vegan assholes. Who all happen to be ex-hackers.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“I found Bill in the kitchen with the Google guys. Someone was trying to figure out how to open the window. There was a lengthy discussion about windows in office buildings and insurance and the sound a body must make when it hits cement after a fifteen-story fall.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“I, who had always prided myself on my ability to accept the fallacy of love, with all my commas, parentheses, and qualified statements, felt love grab me violently by the back of the neck and fling me straight into her arms. This blooming helplessness, which flooded me to my teeth, made me feel a lot of things, but mostly, it made me feel like a girl.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“Free love is vibrator slogan.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve

“One day when we feel less embarrassed about it all, the next generation's great poet will write an elegy for the despair you feel when you, without even the hint of a password, look over the list of wireless networks and see nothing but padlocks.”
― Jay Caspian Kang, The Dead Do Not Improve