Ron Koertge > Quotes

“I'm not a big fan of inspiration. I'm too old to sit and wait for the muse to give me a little kiss... I write a lot, and I'm not afraid to make mistakes or to write badly. I can alsways fix something weak and dull. But I can't fix a blank page.”
― Ron Koertge

“The guys can't take their eyes off Colleen... one of them... probably sees her just like I do, she's the gatekeeper to another world.”
― Ron Koertge, Now Playing: Stoner & Spaz II

“You've got scars, you're beat up, you're a different person, but you're through it.”
― Ron Koertge, Deadville

“Since I don't know where I'm going, I guess I'm in no real hurry to get there.”
― Ron Koertge, Where the Kissing Never Stops

“Kids don't think about their folks nearly as much as everybody imagines. Parents are just there, like background music at the mall.”
― Ron Koertge, Where the Kissing Never Stops

“The air of a deposed prince. falsehood as restorative-if they wouldnt do that if they wouldnt do all that they do. the body as traitor the body as foe. she's thinking about mythology,about reluctant daphne/ relentless apollo. if she could, as daphne did, cry out to mother earth for protection. and have every suitors find a laurel tree in his arms. people would still look up to her. misjudge her. misunderstand her. worship her evn[damn druids]. or carve someone elses name into her. 'oh sweetie dont take things so seriously: the world is your oister' just as she thot, the world is something slimy in a shell. he's so proud of his knavery. okay, she's been vainglorious about her sins too but shes tired of that. 'if you love someone you accept him as he is, but if you accept him as he is than you dont really love him because if you did youd want whats best for him and that usually means he should be better than he is. a meadowy susuration that she used to pretend to like. but not anymore. shes sick of 'huh?' too, that interjection of ignorance. 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.'-Feodor Dostoyevsky. she wants to kiss him. but just in some neutral way. some agape-not-eros way. like disciples kiss. or brave french freedom fighters. 'for i the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visisting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children'-Exodus 20:5 'its just stuff that i thot was interesting. its not, you know, a rorshach. its not like somebody could read this and figure me out.' 'transylvania has beautiful nights. ill just open the window and slip out of this cumbersome crucfix.' 'like the Torah said, dont just hate somebody in your heart; rebuke him.'"
-Margaux with an X”
― Ron Koertge

“That's why babies cry so much. All of a sudden having a body is a lot to deal with.”
― Ron Koertge, Coaltown Jesus

“All over town kids lay awake & wondered: Am I smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, tall enough? If our fears were smoke, the town would be covered night & day by an inky pall.”
― Ron Koertge, Where the Kissing Never Stops

“Little kids I don't mind. Every kid wants a pony. It's grown-ups that get my robe in a knot. Stop with the begging, okay? Adore me for a change. Or give thanks. I like gratitude. Or ask for guidance. But oh, no. It's always the pony.”
― Ron Koertge, Coaltown Jesus

“You're a miracle, Walker. Your fingers are. Your toes are. Your crushing sadness and guilt are.”
― Ron Koertge, Coaltown Jesus

“Dark night of the soul,” said Jesus, “Happens to everybody sooner or later.”
― Ron Koertge, Coaltown Jesus

“If every kid who said he was going to the library, when he was really off doing something else, actually went to the library, they'd have to send out for more books.”
― Ron Koertge, Where the Kissing Never Stops

“Walker grinned.

'Ah,' said Jesus. 'There it is. Signs of your holiness.'

'I just smiled. You made a dumb joke, and I smiled.'

'And that isn't holy?”
― Ron Koertge, Coaltown Jesus

“She's selling CDs on the corner,
fifty cents to any stoner,
any homeboy with a boner.

Sleet and worse - the weather's awful.
Will she live? It's very doubtful.
Life out here is never healthful.

She puts a CD in her Sony.
It's the about the pony
and a pie with pepperoni

and a mom with warm, clean hands
who doesn't bring home guys from bands
or make some sickening demands.

The cold wind bites like icy snakes.
She tries to move but merely shakes.
Some thief leans down and simply takes.

Her next CD's called Land Of Food.
No one there can be tattooed
or mumble things that might be crude

and everything to eat is free,
there's always a big Christmas tree
and crystal bowls of potpourri.

She's weak but still she play one more:
She's on a beach with friends galore.
They scamper down the sandy shore

to watch the towering waves cascade
and marvel at the cute mermaids
who call to her and serenade.

She can't resist. the water's fine.
The rocks are like a kind of shrine.
The foam goes down like scarlet wine.

One cop stands up and says, "She's gone."
The other shakes his head and yawns.
It's barely 10:00, and life goes on.”
― Ron Koertge, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

“OMG. He's a gift shop, a lamb kebab with mint,/a solar panel poetry machine with biceps. He's the path/through the dark woods, the light on the page, a postcard/from the castle and a one-way ticket there. He's the most/astounding arrangement of molecules ever!/Just look at those tights! An honest-to-God prince at last.”
― Ron Koertge, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

“With his iPod all the way up, nothing in this
world can touch him. Just over his pulse
is a fresh tattoo- a dotted line and the words
-----Cut Here-----

Grief is a street he skates down. "Hey,
donkey's ass!" He bides his time, sanding
away his fingerprints, wondering how he
could get his assailants in one room.”
― Ron Koertge, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

“Statements make sense for somebody who needs advice. I’m not giving advice. I don’t instruct. At my best, I delight. That’s my job.”
― Ron Koertge

“I always sit through the credits. I am always the last one out of any theater. I even make a point of being last. I stay in my seat until everyone else has shuffled past. Then I turn my back, too, on the comforting dark.”
― Ron Koertge, Stoner & Spaz

“No wonder I want to be Robert Mitchum: big, strong, super-cool, with those Freon eyes of his. That's who I was pretending to be a minute ago - Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past. - Ben”
― Ron Koertge, Now Playing: Stoner & Spaz II

“I won her over the same way
I hunted - loping after the fawn
I wanted to eat, never in a hurry,
making it a game, tiring her out,
nipping at her heels playfully
until eventually she almost wanted
me to break her neck and open her
up like a purse.”
― Ron Koertge, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

“She knows her life is on the line but, believe it
or not, she's never been so excited!

Her husband's a serial killer, and her bodice is wet
with tears, but there's a chance her brothers
will show up like winning lottery numbers.

Which does she want more - her hair wound
in the maniac's hands and her white white throat bared,
or the sound of boots on marble stairs?”
― Ron Koertge, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

“His mama is so stupid she thinks Meow Mix is a dance album for cats.”
― Ron Koertge, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

“Summer school’s a drag.”
― Ron Koertge, Strays

“Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.”
― Ron Koertge, Fever: poems

“I don’t know where I am.”
― Ron Koertge, Strays

“Animals never cry. They don’t go to pieces and call somebody and go through a box of Kleenex an hour.”
― Ron Koertge, Strays

“Since I’ve been pretty much treading water all day, the marquee of the Rialto Theatre looks like the prow of a ship coming to save me.”
― Ron Koertge, Stoner & Spaz

“Okay, they were ogre children with little gray teeth,
but they were kids! They didn't do anything, not really.
Sure, when they played, they boiled their dolls then cut
them into bite-sized pieces. But that was make-believe.

Everybody says the moral of the story
is that short guys can be cunning
and brave.

But I think the moral is that children pay
for the sins of their parent. Ask anybody
who hates to go home after school.

Ask the girl whose mother is a drunk
and a whore. Ask the boy whose dad
is doing twenty-five to life.”
― Ron Koertge, Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

“Did you know if you look deep, deep, deep into a cat's eyes, there's an alter with three candles ?”
― Ron Koertge, Coaltown Jesus

“In the movies, usually bad ones, when somebody goes on a date, there’s almost always a Changing Scene. Somebody in front of a mirror, clothes everywhere. Or popping out of a closet, each time in a different outfit.”
― Ron Koertge, Stoner & Spaz