What the Hell Did I Just Read Quotes

“They didn’t have witch hunts because they believed in witches. They believed in witches so they could have witch hunts.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“Problem isn’t that there’s not enough heroes in the world, problem is too many dumb people assume they are one.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“Society is nothing more than people cooperating with other people they'd much rather murder.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

“You want sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

“If a spider walks onto your bed, you squish it. If a butterfly lands on your bed, you take a picture. Is the butterfly 'doing something to your brain'? If I didn't make myself look like this, I would already be dead. You kill everything that doesn't have pretty wings.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

“Amy ran on sugar, caffeine, and pain pills, and would sacrifice an entire night of sleep to level up a character in one of her games. The people with health insurance get antidepressants and Adderall, the rich get cocaine, the clean-living Christians settle for mug after mug of coffee and all-you-can-eat buffets. The reality is that society had gotten too fast, noisy, and stressful for the human brain to process and everybody was ingesting something to either keep up or dull the shame of falling behind. For those few who truly live clean, well, it’s the self-righteousness that gets them high.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of—often the greatest difficulty faced by people suffering from mental illness is society’s inexcusable ignorance of the subject.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“It is believed that during the coronation of a new Pharaoh, he would be required to masturbate in front of the crowd, to demonstrate that he himself possessed the fertility powers of Min. If you have watched a State of the Union address, you will find that the ritual has not changed much.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“The problem, David, is your cynicism only runs one direction. If somebody comes on TV and says everything is great and wonderful, you don’t believe it, you say they’re blowing smoke up your butt. You demand proof. But if one second later, some guy comes on and says everything is falling apart, you automatically believe it, no questions asked. If those people had told you that this mine monster situation was no big deal and that we should just go home, you wouldn’t have believed them, not for a second. But the moment they said it was a Class G apocalypse, you were on board. As if nobody ever has motivation to tell you things are worse than they really are. And you know for a fact that’s not true! Nothing controls people like fear.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“You want to fight a kiddy diddler in a dildo store parking lot, I understand that completely, I've done that myself. But are you sure you want to fight a sexual deviant that is also a wizard? That's how you wind up with a cursed asshole.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

“I stared at the price tags and thought, Why don’t you fucking kill yourself? I have that thought a lot, actually. Hey, did you know that people making less than $34,000 a year are 50 percent more likely to commit suicide? I looked it up. Did you know that number shoots up to 72 percent for the unemployed? I heard a guy on talk radio go on and on about how people on food stamps are living the good life off the government teat, and all I could think was, Yes, it’s such a party that sometimes we blow our fucking brains out rather than get humiliated by another government aid employee.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“It’s like in the moment Tasker asked to speak to us, we simultaneously split into three separate timelines. If you understand how this sort of thing could work, please write down your explanation with as much clarity and detail as you can, then throw it in the trash because who gives a shit.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“I mean, if they had just succumbed to passion and banged in my bed, I could understand that. I wouldn’t even be mad, as long as Amy was happy and they cleaned up afterward. But coming into another man’s house and making breakfast for his girl in his own kitchen? That’s some serial killer shit.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“The son of a bitch got just what he wanted. A big, heroic sacrifice. Now the rest of us are left to clean up the mess. He probably thought he was being selfless or something. But look what he left behind. What he did, that’s the most selfish thing you can do. I want to find the jerk who convinced males that martyrdom is cool and kick him in the teeth”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“Ravenous appetites and strange desires lurking just below, like I was bobbing on an inner tube in the middle of the ocean while below me swarmed the swift shadows of a vast school of Cthulhus.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“My resume is worthless—it turns out that managing a now-defunct video store in your twenties while solving monster crimes qualifies you for absolutely nothing else.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“Contrary to what TV and movies have told you, it’s nearly impossible to have a hallucination that you can both see and hear—the mentally ill either just hear voices, or just see things, due to how the brain is wired.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“That black pool of shame bubbled up in my head again. Then, a spark came along and set it alight. The choice between feeling the toxic ooze of self loathing and the fire of mindless rage is no choice at all.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

“No matter who you are or where you’re from, we can all look upon the raw, energetic creations of children and agree that they are very shitty artists.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

“John said, “When they get here, let me do all the talking.” I said, “Amy, when they get here, I want you to do all of the talking. I’ll be busy restraining John.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“The people with health insurance get antidepressants and Adderall, the rich get cocaine, the clean-living Christians settle for mug after mug of coffee and all-you-can-eat buffets. The reality is that society had gotten too fast, noisy, and stressful for the human brain to process and everybody was ingesting something to either keep up or dull the shame of falling behind. For those few who truly live clean, well, it’s the self-righteousness that gets them high.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“It was a unique sensation; the best comparison I can offer is if you opened your fridge to realize something was rotten in there, then when you opened the cheese drawer, you found a photo of your mother fucking a Dalmatian.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“Do you know why soldiers march in unison? Or why they are compelled to chant in groups? It’s a form of hypnosis, it overrides the brain’s critical thinking centers. It’s the same reason we make schoolchildren shout the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“I closed my eyes and let out a breath that smelled like I’d eaten an entire wet dog and washed it down with sweat wrung from a hobo’s undershirt.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“So, they dig up my address and stick it in the mail. “David Wong will know what to do with it!” No, I absolutely will not. It just piles up and the stuff that doesn’t seem too dangerous gets sold on eBay (there’s a whole “Metaphysical” category on the site now, it’s great).”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“His senior year, he started a garage band that was quickly banned from every club, bar, park, and concert hall in the region due to his insistence on playing a song called, “This Venue Is a Front for Human Trafficking, Someone Call the FBI, this Is Not Just a Joke Song Title.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“I squinted drunkenly into the rearview mirror and tried in vain to find the headlights of the black truck that was chasing us, but I actually wasn’t sure if its drivers needed headlights to see or if they even had eyes. I also wasn’t sure it was a truck, or if it was black, or if we were being pursued at all. It was definitely raining, though.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“NO!” he screamed at it. “No! Don’t you see, you dumb son of a bitch? We don’t want to kill you! Can you even hear me, you fucking animal? I will put this through your goddamned neck!”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“If you’ve actually seen a ghost—and I assure you that you probably have, within the last month—it would have just looked like any real, solid person. It’s likely nobody saw that person but you and no, you can’t photograph them. You’re not seeing them with your eyes.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read

“John said, “It’s kind of like how you can’t hear that your pet goldfish is just constantly screaming, but other fish can.”
― David Wong, What the Hell Did I Just Read