Barrel Fever p. 15

"I sometimes just want to shake the life out of her, to point at the radio waves in the night sky and tell her that, Goddamn it, people are thinking out there."

David Sedaris

Independence Day

"Everybody knows you only live a day, but it's brilliant anyway."

--Elliott Smith

Aha

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter-- 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

-Mark Twain

Hold It In

"If there's a God He's embarrassed and it's no secret why, the only thing that He can do is hold it in, hold it in."

-Jukebox the Ghost

Philosophy #18

When one feels no inclination towards a positive or negative emotion for a subject, it can plainly be described that one would "nothing" it.

(Via Adam Aldrete)

On The Road p. 229

"There's always more, a little further -- it never ends."

-Jack Kerouac

On The Road p. 134

"'I like it because it's ugly.'"

-Jack Kerouac

Philosophy #17

"'I hope you get where you're going, and be happy when you do.'"

-Jack Kerouac
On the Road

On The Road p. 5

"But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

-Jack Kerouac

The Inheritance of Loss p. 82

"She sometimes thought herself pretty, but as she began to make a proper investigation, she found it was a changeable thing, beauty. No sooner did she locate it than it slipped from her grasp; instead of disciplining it, she was unable to refrain from exploiting its flexibility. She stuck her tongue out at herself and rolled her eyes, then smiled beguilingly. She transformed her expression from demon to queen. When she brushed her teeth, she noticed her breasts jiggle like two jellies being rushed to the table. She lowered her mouth to taste the flesh and found it both firm and yielding. The plumpness jiggliness firmness softness, all coupled together in an unlikely manner, must surely have given her a certain amount of bartering power?"

-Kiran Desai

The Stranger p.120-121

". . . I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God . . . He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man. Whereas it looked as if I was the one who'd come up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he ever could be, sure of my life and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on it as it had on me. I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done another. And so? It was as if I had waited all this time for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated. Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passes, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too."

-Albert Camus

Ryan Wonser

"It's such a pain in the ass trying to find yourself."

The Razor's Edge p. 277

"Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy. We can none of us step into the same river twice, but the river flows on and the other river we step into is cool and refreshing too."

-W. Somerset Maugham

A Letter To Emily

"The tree looks
like a dog
Barking at Heaven"

-Jack Kerouac