The Flicker Men Quotes

“I drank until I couldn’t remember which hand held the gun and which the bottle. I drank until they were the same.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“Depression is the mind’s way of telling you that you’re not doing what you should be doing.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“If you study magic, does it become science?"
"You learn it's all science.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“First we see, and then we reflect. Imagine a painting of a bicycle; then imagine the bicycle cast as a sculpture. Finally imagine a sculpture so perfect in every detail that it is indistinguishable from what it reflects. Imagine that you might ride upon this perfect sculpture. Is it not, in fact, just another bicycle?”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“Never trust a man with only one book.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“Once you believe in quantum mechanics,” I said, “it’s hard to rule something out merely because it is impossible.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“So there is only this place.” He gestured around him. “Only work. People forget they are going to die someday. There’s more to life than career and paycheck.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“I shook my head. “After a while, quantum mechanics starts to affect your worldview.” “What does this mean?” “The more research I did, the less I believed.” “In quantum mechanics?” “No,” I said. “In the world.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men: A Sampler

“Can you half believe something? No, that wasn't quite right. This was quantum mechanics. The better question: can you both believe in something and not?”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“There is a moment, climbing a tree, when you know you should climb no higher. A winnowing of branches the farther you go, like the choices in life.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“And there was the true artistry of a golden tongue. To be able to speak for an hour without revealing anything. To speak without leaving the impression that your words, by the hundreds, were full of empty air.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“You do not want to drink?” “No.” “I am curious, what you said with the gun, that you’d shoot yourself if you drank…” “Yeah.” “You did not drink on those days you said that?” “That’s right.” Satvik paused as if considering his words carefully. “Then why did you not just say that every day?” “That is simple,” I said. “Because then I’d be dead now.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“The math says you can either know the position of an electron or the momentum, but never both.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“She brought her hand up to find my cheek. “Why are the brilliant ones always so fucked up?”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“The detectors don’t induce the phenomenon of wave function collapse; conscious observation does. Consciousness is like this giant roving spotlight, collapsing reality wherever it shines—and what isn’t observed remains probability. And it’s not just photons or electrons. It is everything. All matter. It is a fault in reality. A testable, repeatable fault in reality.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men