Ben Monopoli > Quotes

“It's not about who you sleep with, or whether you know about sports or tools or have a pearl-wearing wife or whether commercials make you cry. [...] it's about whether you step up. When something hard comes along. A man steps up. He doesn't dodge it or run away from it or try to push it onto someone else. He steps up. Even if it isn't his responsibility. And that's why there are so many guys and so few men. Because stepping up is hard.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Painting of Porcupine City

“I have learned... that memories aren’t things that have to pile up and overwhelm you. They’re just colors... that shade all the new things you feel.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Cranberry Hush

“Fiction is true. It doesn’t have to factual to be true.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Painting of Porcupine City

“I was bi and my heart was off-limits to no one, at least not for any reason like what they had between their legs or whether their chests were flat or round. And maybe because of that I never really could believe or understand that Griff, or anyone else, could be deterred from falling in love by such a trivial thing as gender.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Cranberry Hush

“Young people think they are invincible, that nothing bad will ever happen to them, and then something changes: they fall in love. And the world begins to seem a lot more fragile.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“And that’s the best we can hope for from art, you know? That it changes you for the better. That it lights up the world a little bit.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Painting of Porcupine City

“You know you’re in a tough place in your life when you decide now’s a good time to start Moby Dick.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“For as long as we can remember,” [Griff] said, “I mean literally our whole conscious lives, time has been neatly divided into semesters and years. Each year completely distinguishable and unique. First grade, third grade. We didn’t measure by age, we measured by grade. Like I know I broke my arm in sixth grade but I’d have to do the math to figure out what year that was, or how old I was.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Cranberry Hush

“A painter,” he said, as though the word were an insult. “I’m a writer.”
“You’re a writer? I’m a writer.”
“What do you write?”
“Stories. Books. A book. Fiction.”
“Fiction. Pfft. That’s not writing.”
“What do you write?”
“I write the truth.”
“Fiction is true. It doesn’t have to be factual to be true.”
“Says you. Have you been published?”
“As a matter of fact I have. My novel sold over 65,000 copies.”
“All to your mom.”
“My mom didn’t even know about it.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Painting of Porcupine City

“Practically every guy is the perfect guy the first night, so why ever bother with a second?”
― Ben Monopoli, The Painting of Porcupine City

“I don’t think of Superman as being angsty, though.”
“That’s the problem. Most people don’t. But really he’s pure angst. He has a Fortress of Solitude, you know? What do you think he does there, throw parties? No. He broods.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Cranberry Hush

“We’re sharing a bed, Vince. I’d say we’re a skooch past uncomfortable already, knowi’msayin?” “...”
― Ben Monopoli, The Cranberry Hush

“I have learned, though, that memories aren’t things that have to pile up and overwhelm you. They’re just colors...that shade all the new things you feel.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Cranberry Hush

“The bathroom door opened and Griff emerged in a cloud of steam, the grand entrance of every B-movie alien I’d ever seen. Maybe this wasn’t Griff at all but some interstellar prankster setting me up. Forget about abductions, anal probes and secret alien cookbooks—the real fun was in poking at the Earthlings’ old heartaches.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Cranberry Hush

“The place that haunts us and fuels us even as we wonder whether it truly exists.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“One perk of living alone is there’s no one to judge me.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“I knew from the first moment I saw him that I’d never turn down anything this guy asked of me.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Painting of Porcupine City

“Maybe I’ll take you to a lighthouse and kiss you like in that book about the cranberries everyone has to read in high school.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“Life’s not a porno.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“like a book with nothing on its pages but the promise of an amazing sequel.”
― Ben Monopoli, The Youth & Young Loves of Oliver Wade

“Because it’s never really sex until someone squirts.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“The fishes wake up early.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“Never apologise for being the good guy.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale

“I feel so dirty now," I whispered dramatically.
"I need a chemical baaath." (Oliver)”
― Ben Monopoli, Stag: A Story

“I bet you know someone who could use a few naked jocks in their life.”
― Ben Monopoli

“I’ve always loved this, what silly people disregard as humping but what aficionados call frottage – this feeling a guy over every inch of me, forehead to toes.”
― Ben Monopoli, Homo Action Love Story! A tall tale