Paradise Sky Quotes

“That first loving kiss, the one that comes out of you from the source of your personal river, and the one that comes from her that is the same, there's never another moment like it; never another flame that burns so hot. It can never be that good again, ever. All manner of goodness can come after, but it's different. And that's a good thing, because if we burned that hot for too long, we'd be nothing but ash.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“Problem with trying to be rational all the time is the other fellow ain’t always concerned with how logical your argument is.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“The horse they gave me to ride was that black ogre I had tried to break in and had done so enough to loosely call him a mount. He really wasn’t as bad as I first thought: he was worse. You had to be at your best and alert every time you got on him, cause deep down in his bones he was always thinking about killing you. If you didn’t watch it, he’d act casual, like he was looking at a cloud, a bird, or some such, then he would quickly turn his head and take a nip out of your leg. I still got scars on my knee.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“My new companion was one of the worst cooks I have ever known. I thanked him for the meal, and since all I had to offer was some conversation, that’s what we did. His name was Cullen, but he kept referring to himself as the Former House Nigger, as if it were a rank akin to general.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“I said I could cook,” the Former House Nigger said. “I didn’t say I was any good at it. I can make a peach pie, though, and it ain’t bad if you can imagine it with a crust. I mostly just make the pie slop. Crust defeats me.” “What we got now,” Hatch said, “ain’t even cooking of the lowest order. There’s just a couple of fellas that boil water and put stuff in it, mostly turnips. It’s just one step up from eating horse turds. So if you can do better than that, out here you’re a goddamn chef.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“I can’t stand a damn liar and have no respect for one. But an artful exaggerator always gets my full attention and my undying respect. —Nat Love”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“Now, in the living of my life, I’ve killed deadly men and dangerous animals and made love to four Chinese women, all of them on the same night and in the same wagon bed, and one of them with a wooden leg, which made things a mite difficult from time to time.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“I come to think on that watch some more, and it come to me that God wasn’t all loving. He was like a big watchmaker, and we were the innards of his watch, and this here earth we stand on is the watch’s slippery surface. Once God got the watch made, set it ticking, he sat back and said, ‘Well, good luck to you son of a bitches, cause I’m done.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky

“It makes you less ignorant to actually know what you're talking about, so listen to me.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Paradise Sky