Howard Sounes > Quotes

“I do believe that it takes a strong dose of alienation to make a good artist or writer in the modern world. You can’t be too well-adjusted and still have anything interesting to say.”
― Howard Sounes, Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life

“she picked him up by the neck and throttled him, actually lifting his body off the floor.”
― Howard Sounes, Fred & Rose: The Full Story of Fred and Rose West and the Gloucester House of Horrors

“You will always be Mrs West, all over the world. That is important to me and to you.”
― Howard Sounes, Fred & Rose: The Full Story of Fred and Rose West and the Gloucester House of Horrors

“The Bank of England distributes the nation’s money regionally in this way to avoid the danger of a single calamitous incident at one building destroying its stock of bank notes. This is important because, despite cheques and plastic, the public still uses a vast amount of cash. Approximately £37 billion is fluttering around the national economy daily in paper money.”
― Howard Sounes, Heist: The True Story of the World's Biggest Cash Robbery

“He was a very tenderhearted guy - not towards people necessarily, but towards goldfish.”
― Howard Sounes

“IN 1957 JOHN WEST left Marcle School and went to work on the farm with Fred and their father. Life as an unskilled labourer was poorly paid, but the West boys could expect nothing better. Their father had been a farm worker all his life, as had their maternal grandfather, William Hill, and his father before him; there was no reason to hope or think that John and Fred would ever do anything else. An acquaintance of Fred’s at the time, Patrick Meredith, says that he fully expected Fred to be ‘walking behind a cow with a stick for the rest of his life’.”
― Howard Sounes, Fred & Rose: The Full Story of Fred and Rose West and the Gloucester House of Horrors

“Like the Rolling Thunder Revue, The Last Waltz was fueled by cocaine. 'It was ankle deep,' says Michael McClure, who read poetry as part of the concert. 'When I look at that film, I get a coke high.' Backstage there was a cocaine room, painted white and decorated with noses cut out of Groucho Marx masks. A tape played sniffing noises. Neil Young came out to sing 'Helpless' with a white lump hanging from his nose. The producers had to hire a Hollywood optical company to have the lump removed from the film.”
― Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan