City of Night Quotes

“I read many books, I saw many, many movies. I watched other lives, only through a window.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“And the fierce wind is an echo of angry childhood and of a very scared boy looking out the window—remembering my dead dog outside by the wounded house as the gray Texas dust gradually covered her up—and thinking: It isnt fair! Why cant dogs go to Heaven?”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Maybe I could love you. But I wont. The grinding streets awaited me.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“And the next moment the fierce wind comes screaming, whirling the needle-pointed dust, stifling all hope. And you know then that what has not happened will never happen. That hope is an end within itself. And the fierce wind is an echo of angry childhood and of a very scared boy looking out the window—remembering my dead dog outside by the wounded house as the gray Texas dust gradually covered her up—and thinking: It isnt fair! Why cant dogs go to Heaven?”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Isnt it possible that wanting to be wanted … or ‘loved’ … could be as much an aspect of what you call ‘love’ as actually loving back?” I said. “I mean, in choosing someone to ‘love’ you—to be loved by—while that other person chooses you to ‘love’—doesnt one complete the need of the other?”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Miss Destiny said, “there is a God, and He is one hell of a joker. Just—look—” and she indicates her lovely green satin dress and then waves her hand over the entire room. “Trapped! . . . But one day, in the most lavish drag youve evuh seen—heels! and gown! and beads! and spangled earrings!—Im going to storm heaven and protest! Here I am!!!!! I’ll yell—and I’ll shake my beads at Him. . . . And God will cringe!”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Because somewhere in that plain of childhood time must have been planted the seeds of the restlessness.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“It's that magnificent interlude in New York between winter and spring, when you feel the warmth stirring, and you remember that the dreadful naked trees will inevitably sprout tiny green buds, soon. Everyone rushes into the parks, the streets--and you even forget that, very soon , summer will come scorchingly, dropping from the sky like a blanket of steam...”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“It’s sad—isn’t it?—that people dont have wings too.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“The Ethereal Angels—these are the artists, the poets, the dancers. .”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“even the heart rebels-finally against its own anarchy. And that's the most powerful rebellion.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“It's possible to hate the filthy world and still love it with an abstract pitying love.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“People die when they see life at last without Illusions. For some, it takes many, many years; for others, much less. And so each of us commits suicide: when we will our own deaths: That is the only Death.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“And now, it seems, they are all here: the handsome masculine ones desired alike by men and women; the gushing swishes, hands aflutter like wings; the few stray women secure among the men who will idolize them but not love them; and as in any group of homosexuals and those lured for whatever reason to them, there is here a mood of superficial good humor, of euphoria bordering on hysteria. So”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“The quavering, sensual voice of Elvis Presley is coming from the juke-box in lonesome, sad, sustained, orgasmic moans: The bell-hop’s tears keep flowing The desk clerk’s dressed in black. …”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“He had made much the same protest against the unfairness of the labels thrust at that world—a protest echoed over and over in that life . …”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“And I see: Dominating the skyline, at the top of a tall building, a giant searchlight scanning the city. It glides eerily, swirls over the black water. It floats, soars above the skyline, encircles the nightcity. And crazily excited I wonder suddenly if that spotlight swirling nightly is not trying somehow to embrace it all—to embrace that fusion of savage contradictions within this legend called America And I know what it is I have searched beyond Neil’s immediate world of sought pain—something momentarily lost—something found again in the park, the fugitive rooms, the derelict jungles: the world of uninvited, unasked-for pain … found now, liberatingly, even in the memory of Neil himself. And I could think in that moment, for the first time really: It’s possible to hate the filthy world and still love it with an abstract pitying love.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“From the street, I looked up into the apartment buildings, into the naked windows of the tiny cubicle-rooms. More haggard faces peering blankly; skinny, maimed bodies of uncaring women in slips; men without shirts. All have the same look: the look of nolonger-questioning, resigned doom. The world on its knees. …”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“The defensive narcissism, I thought, avoiding his look.... That self-love that implies a completeness within yourself—and yet implies a huge incompleteness—your devouring need of others to sustain each battered return to the Mirror.... You have Yourself—only!”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“If someone is able to take ‘love’—and take it with intensity—with the full intensity of his ability—and someone else who can give it gives it to the full intensity of his, then one is hardly different from the other.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“There is a God, and He is one hell of a joker. ... Im going to storm heaven and protest! Here I am!!!!! ... And God will cringe!”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“That is the incident of my early childhood that I remember most often. And that is why I say it begins in the wind. Because somewhere in that plain of childhood time must have been planted the seeds of the restlessness.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“I stand on 42nd Street and Broadway looking at the sign flashing the news from Times Tower like a scoreboard: The World is losing.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“The world was revealing its death to me by the process of slow discovery: the slowly gnawing loss of innocence; and I found myself longing for the God in Whom, unquestionably, I had believed as a child. But this world of loneliness and desperation belied Him. The sky was now a black cave where once it had been limitless, stretching into that Heaven of childhood angels and peace.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Women will have but one purpose: to give birth to more of Us. That Is All! They say the great civilizations collapsed when We threatened to take over. Theyve missed the point. They collapsed because We didnt go to the inevitable limit: which is complete”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Women are vampires! Vicious, draining blood-suckers!”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Yes, Hitler failed. But We will succeed. And women? Women will be out! They represent weakness!—but still they want to dominate their Masters—The Male!”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“For me, San Francisco was the inevitable step in that journey toward the loss of innocence. Although I didnt realize it then (telling myself that I was coming here to separate myself—again!—from what had become a guilt-obsessed life; that there was a resurrective atmosphere in San Francisco which would make this possible), I understand now that I came here instead to initiate myself in a further rite which that world would only too willingly expose me to: hinted at subtly the previous time I had been here: when I had explored, but shortly, the netherworld of that city.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“. And then I started driving to the beaches, I guess to make sure there was a whole world ready to welcome me when I finally decided to join it—if I ever decided to. I always came there with the intention of meeting someone. But then I would see a screaming fairy—and suddenly I’d be ashamed. It’s very strange—but I couldnt bear to look into his eyes, afraid, I guess, that he’d look back at me with recognition.”
― John Rechy, City of Night

“Lets have a gay time!”
― John Rechy, City of Night