The Ticking Is the Bomb Quotes

“Some mornings you wake up fully in your body, and you know this is all there is--the air, the shape your body makes in the air, your hand, the skin that covers your hand, the air that covers your skin, the light that fills the air, a few colors in the light, this one thought, this dream dissolving--it is a dream that, in your half-awake state, embarrasses you. You don't tell it to the woman waking up beside you, the woman you love, because it is about another woman, whom you might also love. This is the dream you need to hold onto, this is your shadow speaking, attempting to bewilder you again. Sometimes, if you lay still, you can feel the air entering each cell, sometimes you can feel the blood in your lips. Sometimes, if you lay very still, you can feel the whole web tremble.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir

“(2002) In Rome, month upon month, I struggled with how to structure the book about my father (He already had the water, he just had to discover jars). At one point I laid each chapter out on the terrazzo floor, eighty-three in all, arranged them like the map of an imaginary city. Some of the piles of paper, I imagined, were freestanding buildings, some were clustered into neighborhoods, and some were open space. On the outskirts, of course, were the tenements--abandoned, ramshackled. The spaces between the piles were the roads, the alleyways, the footpaths, the rivers. The bridges to other neighborhoods, the bridges out...In this way I could get a sense if one could find their way through the book, if the map I was creating made sense, if it was a place one would want to spend some time in. If one could wander there, if one could get lost.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir

“What I was trying to say, maybe, is that I don't know what it is I'm capable of transforming into.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir

“My statement to Harris that his book contains much to admire is specious hyperbole. In The End of Faith, Harris rails against religious fundamentalism, which seems obvious, as well as against religious moderates, which seems intolerant.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir

“The South African artist William Kentridge speaks to this type of certainty: 'To say that one needs art, or politics, that incorporate ambiguity and contradiction is not to say that one then stops recognizing and condemning things as evil. However, it might stop one being so utterly convinced of the certainty of one's own solutions. There needs to be a strong understanding of fallibility and how the very act of certainty or authoritativeness can bring disasters.'

The outcome of the current crisis is already determined.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir

“I’ve come to believe that the function of torture in our society is not about getting information, in spite of what we might want to believe. It is merely about power. It tells the world that there is now no limit to what we will do when we feel threatened.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir

“It’s the way I walk through the world, carrying that fear, that the beloved will go, will die, and that I will be the one to blame.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir

“disclaimer:This is a work of nonfiction, but it is also full of dreams, speculations, and shadows. Many names have been changed.”
― Nick Flynn, The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir