Eric Bogosian > Quotes

“It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off”
― Eric Bogosian, subUrbia

“There is a larger lesson here, because the book encompasses not just the lives of prisoners in a Soviet prison camp, but every one of us. Shukhov squeezes everything he can out of a mouthful of soup or a bite of bread…So frozen that he can’t even feel his feet, he trowels cement and lays a cinder block wall with care and patience…Shukhov takes pride in his work. In fact, even though he is starving, he can barely tear himself away at the end of the long day to go eat. He cares about his work and in that way he remains a man. Isn’t this kind of pride and gratitude and ironic detachment valuable for all people?”
― Eric Bogosian, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

“At least I admit that I don't know. I know that things are fucked up, beyond belief, and I have nothing original to say about it.”
― Eric Bogosian

“And if nobody ever hears from me again,
It would be okay,
And if nobody ever knows where I am,
I won’t mind,
Because I would know where I am,
And than is the most important thing.”
― Eric Bogosian, 100

“I’m a first class passenger on the Spaceship Earth, and I got one ticket. And I gotta make the ride count, you know? And, as far as I figure, you can either take the service road or the scenic route. And, man, if I only have one ride, I want it to be beautiful.

84. Highway.”
― Eric Bogosian

“I mean, what kind of literature do you think ants would make if they could read? Not F. Scott Fuckin’ Fitzgerald, not Joyce or D-D—D-Dostoyevsky, not even friggin’ Steinbeck. Wouldn’t make any sense to ’em. You ever read Nabokov’s Lolita? Best book of the twentieth century, but old-fashioned my friend, old fuckin’ fashioned. Same old story over and over again, one more guy mesmerized by his own dick, wandering around the wreckage of his life. Who the fuck cares about that? Give me the Knights of the Round Table! Give me Merlin! Or better, the “wine dark sea”! Much more interesting.”
― Eric Bogosian, Perforated Heart

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it. —Gabriel García Márquez”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“We all know, either implicitly or explicitly, that all we really have is our place in the memories of others. We exist to the degree that we know and remember one another. Even the most isolated among us. We share a collective understanding that we are all part of a greater whole. Perhaps”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“Jeff: I'm saying I don't need a limousine to know who I am, alright?

Tim: Right on. You know what? He doesn't need to limo, man.

Jeff: I mean, you know, at least I admit I don't know. I know that things are fucked up beyond belief and I know that I have nothing original to say about any of it, alright? I don't have an answer. I don't have a fucking message.

Tim: Okay, great. Well, now he's crying. Are you guys happy?”
― Eric Bogosian, subUrbia

“All memory is a form of fiction. But all fiction is a form of reality.”
― Eric Bogosian, Perforated Heart

“formal declaration of jihad in Constantinople, followed by well-organized demonstrations on the streets.”32 Proclamations and pamphlets were distributed.”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“Jeff: Nothing ever changes, man. Fifty years from now we're all gonna be dead. And there will be another group of people standing here drinking beer, eating pizza, bitching about the price of Oreos and they'll have no idea we were ever here and fifty years after those suckers will be dust and bones and there'll be all these generations of suckers, all trying to figure out what the fuck they're doing on this fucking planet and it'll all be full of shit. It's all so fucking futile.

Tim: If it's all so fucking futile, what the fuck are you so fucking upset about, fuckhead?”
― Eric Bogosian, subUrbia

“When the West overpowered native populations, these actions, no matter how violent, were rationalized as manifestations of the natural order of things. “Manifest destiny” and “social Darwinism” laid the foundation for violent improvement of the world. Europeans saw themselves as superior and naturally born to rule. They believed that their domination of faraway lands brought “civilization” to the natives. In return, the rulers of the empires benefited. “The purpose of colonies was to supply the mother country with raw materials and to provide a market for her manufactured goods,”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“It's true she was a flower. But a flower that thrives in the wrong place is a weed.”
― Eric Bogosian, Wasted Beauty

“British prime minister William Gladstone summed up the West’s opinion of “the Turk”: Let me endeavor very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline, what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mahometanism simply, but of Mahometanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mahometans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and, as far as their dominion reached, civilisation disappeared from view.”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“Genocide is a word. Like the words “love” or “God,” it seems to be comprehensible. But in fact it cannot be grasped, it cannot be taken in. It is the unspeakable made verbal.”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“He who kills even one unbeliever of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or openly, shall be rewarded by God.”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“Turkey. The institutions of the republic, particularly its university system and judiciary, as well as its social life, can no longer exist in concert with manufactured history. The truth is easily accessible, and Turkish scholars and writers, young people using social media, anyone watching television,”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit.”
― Eric Bogosian

“The struggle within Turkey that continues to this day is the legacy of Kemal Ataturk’s radical reformation,”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“impact of this makeover has been to significantly impede historical research, and it is one of Ataturk’s most devastating accomplishments.”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“CHRIS Don’t you think that without some kind of belief in God our actions in this world are meaningless? It would just be physics and chemicals without God... just shapes and colors... BARRY Shapes and colors? Come on! Chris! We been reading William Blake? CHRIS I think you do believe in God. BARRY Oh, you do? CHRIS Yes, you believe in God. BARRY Really? What makes you so sure? CHRIS It’s simple. You think you are God. And aren’t you ashamed?”
― Eric Bogosian, The Essential Bogosian: Talk Radio, Drinking in America, FunHouse and Men Inside

“Turkish.” Vocabulary was deleted, new words added. Place-names all over the country were Turkified (for example, “Smyrna” became “Izmir”), which only added confusion and another obfuscating layer to the buildup of historical sediment.”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“CALLER Are you as ugly looking as you sound? BARRY Uglier. CALLER Yeah, I thought you’d say something like that. But as usual you avoid the question... BARRY (Pause) What’s the question? CALLER I think you know the question. BARRY Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral? CALLER The question is obvious, why does an intelligent fellow like yourself spend so much energy hurting other people? Do you not love yourself? BARRY People who love themselves are in love with a fool. CALLER Well put. Good night, Barry. (Click) BARRY (Stares at his microphone. He’s feeling trapped.) “Nighttalk.” Allan.”
― Eric Bogosian, The Essential Bogosian: Talk Radio, Drinking in America, FunHouse and Men Inside

“Is Howard Stern Barry Champlain? I hope not, for Stern’s sake. As far as I know, this play is not based on one man’s life; rather, I meant it to be a quilt of madness from the late eighties, a play about voices in the dark. Remember: sticks and stones can break your bones, but words cause permanent damage.”
― Eric Bogosian, The Essential Bogosian: Talk Radio, Drinking in America, FunHouse and Men Inside

“the Young Turks with a complex nationalist ideology replete with ideas such as “in reality there cannot be a common home and fatherland for different peoples.… The new civilization will be created by the Turkish race.”27”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“Buff: What are you doing now?

Bee-Bee: I don't know. You mean like now? Like right now? Waiting.”
― Eric Bogosian, subUrbia

“Legislation was passed that seemed to welcome any surviving Armenians back to their homes, and at least on paper, Christians and Jews were to be treated like any other citizens in Turkey. But this was a very cold and toxic embrace. The Turkish government was no longer engaged in an organized system of deportation, but with Kemal’s endorsement, the ethnic cleansing of Anatolia would continue.”
― Eric Bogosian, Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide

“And then I’m gonna step right into the wilderness. Just live on berries and shit. Not bother anybody. Not hurt anything.
Something I have to do, man.”
― Eric Bogosian, 100

“Jeff: At least I admit that I don't know. I know that things are fucked up, beyond belief, and I have nothing original to say about it...”
― Eric Bogosian, subUrbia