Dave Matthes > Quotes

“That's the beautiful thing about innocence; even monsters have a pocketful of childhood memories with which to seek comfort with.”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“...you're either gonna spend your life fucking pussy, or taking it to church.”
― Dave Matthes, Bar Nights

“I've always felt that distant train whistles heard in the dead of night are the universe's way of letting us know the best days are neither ahead nor behind us...they're happening right now, cradled in the palms of our hands. But that doesn't change the fact that the whiskey, weed, and romance eventually runs out and the night will soon turn to day.”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“I decided to masturbate with shampoo instead of conditioner today. Because yolo. Things Jesus never said.”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“I never had a childhood. Not like the rest of them anyway. I had a starting point from which I have never stopped running.”
― Dave Matthes, Bar Nights

“An empty bottle of Jack is almost just as beautiful as a new and unopened bottle...in the same sense as looking down at muddied feet, and looking back the way you came. The journey you've taken to get to this point, the experiences and sights and music listened to, the shit scrolled down on paper. An empty bottle may hold more promise than a full one in that regard...”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held in higher regard than others. I want to feel valued, so I say to myself to watch certain shows. I watch certain shows on the television so I can participate in dialogues and conversations and debates with people who want the same things I want. I want to dress a certain way so certain groups of people are forced to be attracted to me. I want to do my hair a certain way with certain styling products and particular combs and methods so that I can fit in with the In-Crowd. I want to spend hours upon hours at the gym, stuffing my body with what scientists are calling 'superfoods', so that I can be loved and envied by everyone around me. I want to become an icon on someone's mantle. I want to work meaningless jobs so that I can fill my wallet and parentally-advised bank accounts with monetary potential. I want to believe what's on the news so that I can feel normal along with the rest of forever. I want to listen to the Top Ten on Q102, and roll my windows down so others can hear it and see that I am listening to it, and enjoying it. I want to go to church every Sunday, and pray every other day. I want to believe that what I do is for the promise of a peaceful afterlife. I want rewards for my 'good' deeds. I want acknowledgment and praise. And I want people to know that I put out that fire. I want people to know that I support the war effort. I want people to know that I volunteer to save lives. I want to be seen and heard and pointed at with love. I want to read my name in the history books during a future full of clones exactly like me.

The mirror, I've noticed, is almost always positioned above the sink. Though the sink offers more depth than a mirror, and mirror is only able to reflect, the sink is held in lower regard. Lower still is the toilet, and thought it offers even more depth than the sink, we piss and shit in it. I want these kind of architectural details to be paralleled in my every day life. I want to care more about my reflection, and less about my cleanliness. I want to be seen as someone who lives externally, and never internally, unless I am able to lock the door behind me.

I want these things, because if I didn't, I would be dead in the mirrors of those around me. I would be nothing. I would be an example. Sunken, and easily washed away.”
― Dave Matthes

“Being crazy, for the rest of us, is a form of sanity.”
― Dave Matthes, Bar Nights

“Let me ask you this: How many days do you have left, if any, in the life you promised for yourself yesterday?”
― Dave Matthes, Bar Nights

“Sad, slow music in the small hours of the morning isn't just sad and slow music. It's a narration. And through the myriad of morning dew, we are the twinkling stars that fade with the rising sun.”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“Being smart takes patience. Being wise takes pain. Being apathetic takes practice. Being in love takes everything...away.”
― Dave Matthes, In This House, We Lived, and We Died

“So you mean to tell me you won't fuck anyone you don't share some kind of deep emotional connection with? What a sad, depressing, truly horrible life you must lead...”
― Dave Matthes, Bar Nights

“Embrace all emotions: sadness, happiness, sorrow, hate, love, prejudice, fear; they are weapons against our greatest enemy: indifference.”
― Dave Matthes, Wanderlust and the Whiskey Bottle Parallel: Poems and Stories

“Life will hack off your head and shit down your neck every chance it gets. I've found that consuming drugs and booze, listening to music and always having an excuse in the best way to tip the scales.”
― Dave Matthes, Bar Nights

“To all the boys, for when you become men: you'll leave women all throughout your life because they're holding you back, and even after she's gone she'll still weigh you down. To all the women: stay away from us men. We don't know anything about you, despite what we try to convince you of.”
― Dave Matthes, Paradise City

“The door is cracked

We used to meet
like water does land
no
not that
more like when skin touches skin
kissing fingertips
or when air escapes a lung
and is felt across the world
I've leapt over cracks in sidewalks
and swallowed away troublesome back pains
that could only be fixed with someone else's pills
We met by your house one stray day
and you drove me to the bay
where we sat and kissed like it was yesterday
And here you told me that you loved me
and that you always loved me
and that you would always love me
the wind blew and I held you
You rested your head on my shoulder
and the wind blew warm
Later, in your big red truck, we smoked some green
and I kissed you harder
and held your breasts, and felt between your legs
and with a gasp
you told me you were in love with me
And then you drove me back
and we promised it wouldn't be the end
not this time
The quill and inkwell on your foot
I'm a writer and you are my greatest art
I returned to my hell and dreamt of you once more”
― Dave Matthes, Strange Rainfall on the Rooftops of People Watchers: Poems and Stories

“There's folly in her stride
that's the rumor
justified by lies
I've seen her up close
beneath the sheets
and sometime during the summer
she was mine for a few sweet months in the fall
and parts of December

((( To get to the heart of this unsolvable equation, one must first become familiar with the physical, emotional, and immaterial makeup as to what constitutes both war and peace. )))

I found her looking through a window
the same window I'd been looking through
She smiled and her eyes never faltered
this folly was a crime

((( The very essence of war is destructive, though throughout the years utilized as a means of creating peace, such an equation might seem paradoxical to the untrained eye. Some might say using evil to defeat evil is counterproductive, and gives more meaning to the word “futile”. Others, like Edmund Burke, would argue that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.” )))

She had an identity I could identify with
something my fingertips could caress in the night

((( There is such a limitless landscape within the mind, no two minds are alike. And this is why as a race we will forever be at war with each other.
What constitutes peace is in the mind of the beholder. )))

Have you heard the argument?
This displacement of men and women
and women and men
the minds we all have
the beliefs we all share
Slipping inside of us
thoughts and religions and bodies
all bare

((( “Without darkness, there can be no light,”
he once said. To demonstrate this theory, during one of his seminars he held a piece of white chalk and drew a line down the center of a blackboard. Explaining that without the blackness of the board, the white line would be invisible. )))

When she left
she kissed with eyes open
I knew this because I'd done the same
Sometimes we saw eye to eye like that
Very briefly,
she considered an apotheosis
a synthesis
a rendering of her folly
into solidarity

((( To believe that a world-wide lay down of arms is possible, however, is the delusion of the pacifist; the dream of the optimist; and the joke of the realist. Diplomacy only goes so far, and in spite of our efforts to fight with words- there are times when drawing swords of a very different nature are surely called for. )))

Experiencing the subsequent sunrise
inhaling and drinking
breaking mirrors and regurgitating
just to start again
all in all
I was just another gash in the bark

((( Plato once said:
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Perhaps the death of us all is called for in this time of emotional desperation. War is a product of the mind; only with the death of such will come the end of the bloodshed. Though this may be a fairly realistic view of such an issue, perhaps there is an optimistic outlook on the horizon. Not every sword is double edged, but every coin is double sided. )))

Leaving town and throwing shit out the window
drinking boroughs and borrowing spare change
I glimpsed the rear view mirror
stole a glimpse really
I've believed in looking back for a while
it helps to have one last view
a reminder in case one ever decides to rebel
in the event the self regresses
and makes the declaration of devastation
once more

((( Thus, if we wish to eliminate the threat of war today- complete human annihilation may be called for. )))”
― Dave Matthes, Wanderlust and the Whiskey Bottle Parallel: Poems and Stories

“In the hours waking,
when we're still all still,
and you can hear the floorboards creaking,
and you can feel the shades blow in,
the night we slept with,
we'll never kiss like that again.
Our lips, will sever,
our memories, will dissipate,
and our shadows will be swallowed by the sky.”
― Dave Matthes, The Kaleidoscope Syndrome: An Anthology

“Some people's glasses are half full. I'm the one drinking them.
Some people have forgotten that Pluto is still a planet. I still remember my childhood.
Some people are vegans. I have common sense.
Some people call me Maurice. Some people call me the Gangsta of Love.
Some people just want to live...but me, I'm the one still alive.”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“Plans never go as planned, ever; that’s just how life is. People spend way too much time dreaming about a future they should be having more nightmares warning them against. But that doesn't mean you should let those bad dreams scare you away; all those nightmares want is respect. If you give them that, they’ll give you the space you need. Unless, of course, they’re the type of nightmares that have an appetite, then you’re fucked.”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“There just isn’t enough cock in this world to be caught suckin’ and be called anything but a slut for life. The cynic in me would call it a bad habit, but that’d make me a whore in denial and if there’s one thing I am, it’s an honest bitch. Then again, you don’t get famous for being daddy’s little angel, but you can easily fall into the Infamy Bracket by preaching a made-up Bible quote now and again. They say I’m shallow, but I’ve made a living out off diving off the deep end.”
― Dave Matthes, Sleepeth Not, the Bastard

“You know one day, you're going to look back on these days. And everyone you went to high school with will either be getting married to each other, shitting out kids, or dropping dead like flies," when she spoke, Miss Jenson sighed at the end of every few words; she must have been narrating her own thoughts she might have otherwise kept to herself, "and everything you never did, you'll never be able to even try.”
― Dave Matthes, Paradise City

“The day I became a writer
it wasn't the day a whore paid me in sex
in exchange for one of my books
which happened often and more and more
as time went on
it wasn't the first time someone
actually paid for one of my books
which happens less and less
as time goes on
It was the day I realized
that everything is created by man
God, Satan, Judas, phobias, excrement, even death
even women
everything is created by man
So I said to myself
shit, let me make something
let me tape together some words
and sentences
and prose
and predicates
and the residual shit that sticks to my ass after I wipe
and compose a new kind of thing
But then I realized that others had discovered this
for themselves as well
And suddenly the world became a jungle
Where everyone eats each other alive
And shits out the same shit”
― Dave Matthes, Wanderlust and the Whiskey Bottle Parallel: Poems and Stories

“...people who don't live at least a little bit in fear, have nothing left to live for.”
― Dave Matthes, Return to the Madlands

“When it happens and it hits hard, we decide certain things, and realize there's truth in all those dark, lonely days"

He had an instantaneous look about him,
a glimmer and a glint over those eyes,
he knew how the world worked,
and took pleasure in its wickedness.

He would give a dime or two to those sitting on the street,
he would tell them things like:
"It won't get any better,"
and
"Might as well use this to buy your next fix,"
and finally
"It's better to die high than to live sober,"

His suit was pressed nicely, with care and respect,
like the kind a corpse wears,
he'd say that was his way of honoring the dead,
of always being ready for the oncoming train,
I liked him,
he never wore a fake smile
and he was always ready to tell a story about
how and
when

"We all wake up alone," he said once,
"Oftentimes even when sleeping next to someone, we wake up before them and they are still asleep and suddenly we are awake, and alone."
I didn't see him for a few days,
a few days later it felt like it'd been weeks,
those weeks drifted apart from one another,
like leaves on a pond's surface,
and became like months.

And then I saw him and I asked him where he'd been,
he said,
"I woke up alone one day, just like any other, and I decided I didn't like it anymore.”
― Dave Matthes, Ejaculation: New Poems and Stories

“Reaction time

Touch the underside of a penny you find
on the street
Doesn't feel any different unless you close your eyes
I can taste the copper in my mouth now
seeping from between my teeth
There's an explanation I'm sure
all this blood
it's from all the times I held the glass too close
And forgot to tip the dancer
A storm just passed
and like every other one that came before it
I was left unharmed
The dogs are all barking and the cats
hiding in the basement
And the sky is colored that bright yellow glow
makes it feel like you're wearing sunglasses
that you can't take off
Wherever you are now
it's not here
because I missed it
I missed the show
I missed the curtain call
And forever more
I am cursed
like a blanket without a body to keep warm”
― Dave Matthes, Strange Rainfall on the Rooftops of People Watchers: Poems and Stories

“With riddles as black as coals, and answers as invisible as our past,
I can only depend upon the crest of the rolling wave I now traversed;
a romance worshiped only by the dreamer in us all,
a psithurism of trust making its way through the years of our ascension
to one day climb above the kaleidoscopic canopy of this mortal coil.”
― Dave Matthes, In This House, We Lived, and We Died

“You don't have to go back to the way things were. Just go back to the point where you left off. Don't start over... just keep going, but there's a right way of keeping going. And no one here is going to be angry at you for leaving. We all have to leave sometimes. And some of us never come back. But there's always a choice, even if you've already decided never to return. You can still come back from this. That is the only kind of faith that matters. Not in the world, not in...God..., not in our friendship... just in yourself.”
― Dave Matthes, Return to the Madlands

“People will drive by their high school ten years down the road, just so they can pretend that thinking "not much has changed" is actually true. When really, everything has changed. The air smells the same, but the roads have cracked more. The roads have cracked so much they now look like the skin on a crocodile's back. And all the fields, green in the summers, golden in the autumns, have all been paved over with new reasons to never come back.”
― Dave Matthes, Paradise City

“Music is the love child birthed from the boundless freedom found in dreams and the rapturous opposition faced in life; for that, we should be so grateful for both the light and the dark.”
― Dave Matthes