Ronald Everett Capps > Quotes

“See what is invisible and you will see what to write”
― Ronald Everett Capps

“The word 'love' is a fucked up word that's been used and abused so much it no longer means shit. The same thing is true about 'beauty.' 'Beauty' doesn't mean anything anymore. Idots use the word, and look at what they use it for. Nothing! Anything! If you ever become educated, and I doubt if that will ever happen, you will have to understand that most of what you will learn is going to be just a lot of shit.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“People who have the ability to hear, I mean with their inner being, souls, wisdom, are the only ones who can grasp the...things that remain out of sight.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“Hanna started to laugh uncontrollably. "Now," Bobby told her, "say, 'I'm a dying cockroach.'"
Again Hanna stopped and rolled over. "Do what?" she asked.
"You were doing good, Girl. Don't stop. Please don't stop. Quick, get back on your back."
It was his patience with her that finally convinced her to go on with the foolishness.
"That's it. Wiggle. Wiggle. Now, say, 'I'm a dying Cockroach.'"
"I cant."
"Yes you can. Say it. Say it."
Hanna started laughing so hard she could not stop.
"I'm a dying cockroach." she managed to say.
"I'm a dying cockroach, " Bobby repeated. "Say it again. Say it over and over. I'm a dying cockroach, I'm a dying cockroach. Say it."
"I'm a dying cockroach," Hanna began.
"Keep wiggling. Wiggle. Wiggle. I'm a dying cockroach."
"I'm a dying cockroach. I'm a dying fucking cockroach!"
Bobby spent nearly half an hour putting Hanna through the exercise he had experienced in the Marine Corps. He was satisfied when finally she began to scream uncontrollably as she flailed about the floor hysterically in absolute absurdity. Tears were pouring over her face. It was then that Bobby fell over her and began to hug and hold her and kiss her cheeks. "You did it!" Girl, you did it. See?" After she came back to her senses and calmed down, Bobby explained why he put her through the ordeal. "How do you feel?" he asked her.
Hanna smiled and said. "Weird. I made a fucking fool of myself."
"Great," said Bobby. "That was the point. See, you got outside yourself. You lost your ego."
Hanna was starting to understand. "I did, didn't I? I let go. I honestly let go of everything. I didn't care. I didn't give a shit for nothing. It felt great. Shiiiitttt!" she screamed into her hands. "I'm a fucking dying cockroach. And I don't give a shit about nothing."
"Anything," Byron said from the kitchen.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“...like two children who had, for the first time, discovered someone who shared their thoughts...”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“That was the way he had lived his whole life. To him things were simple. You reached out and took, and if you felt like it, you gave, with the intensity you wanted to give with.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“There is something strange about agony; the memory of it can be terribly short-lived when the contrast of revival and a pretty spring afternoon have dispelled the regrets. One drink of vodka in a cheerful glass, in the company of good poetry and the scent of blossoms and earth might entice the most well intended to forgo promise of atonement until a worse time. I have at times been just less than amazed how one drink merges with the second, where at some unknown point a mental transformation sets in. I have never been able to ascertain at what point that is--not precisely--and I have been conscious of trying to catch that moment, to try and understand it, to try and prevent it from happening, or at least have a fair chance to decide wheather or not to cross over into that other realm. Such an elusive thing, this is.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“If you are capable of hearing, listen.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“Let them leave
language to
their lonely
betters
Who count
some days and
long for cer-
tain letters;
We, too, make
noises when
we laugh or
weep,
Words are for
those with
promises to
keep.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“I ended up
with forty
acres;
I ended up
with a broken
fiddle--
And a broken
laugh, and a
thousand
memories,
and not a sin-
gle regret.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“Takes one motherfucker to know another.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“...Blow my love to me.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“We know so many things that remain out of sight”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“The earth keeps some vibration going there in your heart, and that is you...”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“It's about...something that remains out of sight”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“Pride Goeth before the fall.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“one drink did not a drunk make”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street

“And what lots of people called pretty was not necessarily so, nor were ugly things really ugly if you had the ability to look closely.”
― Ronald Everett Capps, Off Magazine Street