T.J. Payne > Quotes

“Daddy… please eject.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Deliver me a pain that I can feel. Let me know that I am alive.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“But even blackness, when there’s nothing to contrast it against, is it truly black? Or is it just… nothing?”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Most of these guys are sexually frustrated losers. Women rejected them. And now they want to punish those women. They want to feel powerful. They’re not particularly deep. And they’re not very interesting.”
― T.J. Payne, In My Father's Basement

“He loves you, Kate… You are his weakness…”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Children or not, people were going to be people. They’d be lazy if you let them. They’d be catty if you allowed it. And they’d blame you if they could.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“It was the same strategy as being a good parent. Be warm, but firm. Set sensible rules then communicate and enforce them clearly.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Why doesn’t this country build big, ambitious shit like that anymore? she wondered.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Joe performing unauthorized shutdowns… Joe “suggesting” that Tyler station all his security forces in the lobby instead of down below because of the “optics”… Fuck.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Her mouth stretched into a wide, gaping oval. She screamed. “Totally agree,” Carson said in response. “Cool, no restraints then.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“They saw what she saw. Nestled in the dirt was a human ear. “Unacceptable,” she hissed. She plucked a white handkerchief from a nearby bellhop’s breast pocket and bent down by the bush. The ear was cleanly severed but speckled in blood. An army of ants marched in a line over the top of it, seemingly making plans for how best to carry it away for their dinner. The Event Planner scooped up the ear in the handkerchief.”
― T.J. Payne, The Venue

“They open my eyes to burn them with light. They open my ears to stab them with sound. They open my nerves to set them on fire.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Or maybe she was purposefully ignoring him.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“See, back in the 70s, the CIA experimented with all sorts of torture. Forced interrogation methods and stuff. Anything to get prisoners talking, spilling the goods. We’re talking water-boarding, tight confinement, sleep deprivation, pumping them full of LSD. Anything that anyone could dream up. One thing they tried was extreme sensory deprivation. They’d lock people in pitch-black, silent rooms. Days, weeks, or even months on end. Psychologically, it’s devastating. Without sensory stimulation, the brain just goes haywire.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“I just wanna party,” Amy said.”
― T.J. Payne, The Venue

“I do not know. I may never know. I scream. Not from pain, but because my ears can’t hear what I say. And so, I scream louder. I’m shouting. I’m telling myself to shriek. Any pitch, any frequency that might penetrate my dead ears. But I hear nothing. Maybe I never screamed at all. Maybe I never stopped screaming.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“mind”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“They’re highly-tuned vegetables. How dangerous can they be?”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“That was the power of parenthood; the protective instincts overrode everything else.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“I tell my hand to stretch out its fingers and dig its nails into my cheek. To scratch. To claw. To rip away the flesh. To find the nerve-ends and pluck at them.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“emotions”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Humans were the only species that Caleb could think of whose survival instincts required them to give the appearance of being nice. Non-threatening. Non-toxic. Humans were kind to your face. They wanted you to trust them, to believe they were harmless and good. And then, when the smile and pleasantries finished disarming their prey, humans would sink their poisonous fangs into the backs of their unsuspecting “friends.”
― T.J. Payne, The Venue

“I’d make friends, and they’d abandon me.”
― T.J. Payne, The Venue

“Get in your hole, you little asshole. Get in your fucking hole!”
― T.J. Payne, The Venue

“He would find his daughter always. He would watch over her”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“The more I try, the more the stabs of pain ripple through my eyelids. I then realize that there are hooks prying my eyelids open. They must have placed the hooks there. They are making me watch.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“Call me old-fashioned, but I feel a hooker is something that should be picked up in person, not ordered online.”
― T.J. Payne, In My Father's Basement

“But once he actually started working, he realized that everything was held together by duct tape and twine, not for lack of technological know-how, but because duct tape and twine were cheaper and easier than dealing with the crippling bureaucracy.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“You think too small, kid. Everything is part of a larger plan.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts

“My mind retains the faintest fragments of the concept of Hell, and sometimes that’s where I think I am.”
― T.J. Payne, Intercepts