Christopher Bollen > Quotes

“Was there anything as innocent as willful self-destruction?”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“When do the defense measures of a paranoid country become their own agents of self-destruction?”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Your little eco-friendly fairy tale ain’t going to happen. This was farming land long before it was cute-house land.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“No, it’s cool,” Mills replied. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m single.” It was the first time he had ever defined himself as single, which felt like defining himself as American in a foreign country. It sounded advanced and self-reliant and lonely.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“They were young and gay and the femininity of their teenage years had only recently hardened into the muscle of a competitive sexual economy. Their muscles met the demands of the city, and the city met the demands of their muscles.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“It’s all a fucking trap, owning things, places, people. The way I see it, we don’t own things. We get owned.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Maybe, in the end, a home is a place where you have no other choice but to stay.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“But wasn’t there always a someone once for everyone?”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Until you write books, you don't realize that the book does decide certain things. It must sound like complete insanity to non-writers. And maybe it is.”
― Christopher Bollen

“Paul needed to come out, not as gay or straight, but as human.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“You know how hard it is to actually touch the world? To make a mark on it? You die and they bury you in it.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Military dictatorships love their tanks, don’t they? They appreciate the spectacle of rolling them through the center of cities. It’s great optics for control. Countries like ours, Western democracies, on the other hand, we don’t have a taste for tanks. It gives citizens the jitters, makes them feel like they’re being invaded, conjures up China or the Soviet Union. We prefer the spectacle of air and sea. Hell, we salute jets when they’re flying overhead. Those are optics of freedom, not oppression.” Kurt rolled a pen between his fingers. His voice grew thoughtful. “It’s ironic. You should be far more afraid of missiles than tanks, but there’s a lot of showmanship in this business. I think countries find the defense that fits their character.”
― Christopher Bollen, The Lost Americans

“The Greeks used to say that gods and animals were born whole. It is only humans who need to develop, that they become complete only with the help of a community. It’s the state of that community that can turn a human into a god or a beast.” She dropped the bee into the terrarium and returned it slowly to the table. “Maybe that’s bullshit. I happen to like the beasts.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“All your convictions come back to mock you when you reach a certain age.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Art didn’t have to provide answers. It only had to ask questions.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Now young people have the Internet and a zillion phone apps so you don’t need an actual place to congregate. You can be everywhere, nowhere, a floating message-spewing entity. We used to rely on drugs to get that sensation.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Everyone loves a dead artist. It’s the living ones that people can’t tolerate.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“These are the males,” she said. Beth leaned in to examine it. “Any stimulation,” Magdalena said, and finished the thought by gently rubbing her fingers together. The bee’s hoary tail split open, and a thin, stamenlike organ shot out and curled. “Like all males, harmless and easily aroused.” She laughed. “It’s the females you have to be careful about.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“I want to sleep with people, steal, get run out of town, leave my fingerprints on every scene. We have a name for it, our generation. It’s our Baghdad.”
“Your what?”
“My Baghdad,” Tommy said laughing, knowing it was dumb, savoring the dumbness, and maybe also its truth. “The situation you get into knowing it’s fucked-up but you keep doing it anyway, making it an even bigger disaster. Everyone gets one, but that’s how you learn. It builds character, makes you dirty and real. You know you’re a superpower when you can lose every war and still be a superpower. Maybe you’re a superpower because you can afford to lose them. Same here. There should be a Web site that records all the risks a person has taken, all the famous people they’ve met, all their gnarly trips and bad decisions. Like a Web site that ranks who’s lived the most.”
“Isn’t that called Facebook?” Mills asked.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“You don’t realize how old you’ve become until someone young comes around to remind you.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Maybe they’ve been drinking and think it’s funny. They’re from Cutchogue.” Karen seemed to believe the nearby village of Cutchogue was known for its drunken liars.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“Charlie was still at the age where cheating seemed more an emblem of a dazzling personal life rather than a moral failing. He gave, as he always did, the conflicting impression of maturity and irresponsibility beneath an out-of-season tan.”
― Christopher Bollen, The Destroyers

“Why was a person’s exact cause of death so often more fascinating than what they did with their life? Because it explained how they suffered, Mills thought, because it was a reminder that everyone suffers in the end.”
― Christopher Bollen, Orient

“For fifty-four years we didn’t just finish each other’s sentences; we could start them.”
― Christopher Bollen, Havoc

“So it takes one agent of chaos to defuse another.”
― Christopher Bollen, Havoc

“At my age, injuries appear out of nowhere, like dangerous men on the sides of highways, trying to convince you to stop for them.”
― Christopher Bollen, Havoc

“And the fear is not to discover one day that the world has no meaning, but that, in fact, it does. Every decision counted. Against your better judgment, all of it mattered, the steps and choices, the pauses and delays. That’s the real fear: the answerable life.”
― Christopher Bollen, The Destroyers

“apologizing for my presence, uglifying the room with my oldness.”
― Christopher Bollen, Havoc

“analysts he pays to discover opportunities in ‘emerging markets,’ the best indicator is prostitutes.”
― Christopher Bollen, The Destroyers

“What do I do? I liberate people who don’t know they’re stuck. I help them to press the eject switch. That’s one definition. Another? I sow chaos. I clean house. I change people’s lives for the better, whether they see it that way or not. Only once did my actions end for the worse. But I don’t like to think about the murder.”
― Christopher Bollen, Havoc