John Tottenham > Quotes

“My Sadness is Deeper than Yours

My sadness is deeper than yours. My interior life is richer than yours. I am more interesting than you. I don’t care about anybody else’s problems. They are not as serious as mine. Nobody knows the weight I carry, the trouble I’ve seen. There are worlds in my head that nobody has access to: fortunately for them, fortunately for me. I have seen things that you will never see, and I have feelings that you are incapable of feeling, that you would never allow yourself to feel, because you lack the capacity and the curiosity. Once you felt the hint of such a feeling, you would stamp it out. I am a martyr to futility and I don’t expect to be shut down by a pretender. Mothballs are an aphrodisiac to me, beauty depresses me. You could never hope to fathom the depth of my feelings, deeper than death. I look down upon you all from my lofty height of lowliness. The fullness of your satisfaction lacks the cadaverous purity of my pain. Don’t talk to me about failure. You don’t know the meaning of the word. When it comes to failure, you’re strictly an amateur. Bush league stuff. I’m ten times the failure you’ll ever be. I have more to complain about than you, and regrets: more than a few, too many to mention. I am a fully-qualified failure, I have proven it over and over again. My credentials are impeccable, my resume flawless. I have worked hard to put myself in a position of unassailable wretchedness, and I demand to be respected for it. I expect to be rewarded for a struggle that produced nothing. I want the neglect, the lack of acknowledgment. And I want the bitterness that comes with it too.”
― John Tottenham

“Everything's falling apart according to plan.”
― John Tottenham

“RIVETING TORPOR

It is remarkable how far I am prepared to go
In order to avoid doing the one thing that might
Provide satisfaction, and it is remarkable to consider
What I will do instead of it, purely for the pleasure
Of being dissatisfied. When it is merely a matter
Of sitting down for a few hours and dreaming
That something of value might eventually arise
From this routine of self-enforced boredom.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations

“VIEW FROM A HILL

I am not yet quite over it.
I am lying down on top of it.
Surveying behind me a wasteland
Of dried-up promise.
While the lights below twinkle
With dull mocking uncertainty.
There isn't much left to look forward to,
And the looking forward of the past has been belied.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations

“Life Without Work

To do nothing
In this day and age,
When so much pointless work
Is being produced,
Could almost be considered an achievement.
It all compares most unfavorably
With my own imaginary
Body of work.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations

“IMPROVIDENCE

The other lives I might have led
All now might as well be
Dead. Survived by no one.
Barren, without issue of any sort:
This withered bud, failed
In art and love. With no time left
To change my course. But time enough
for infinite remorse.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations

“Patronage of Negation

I am constantly confronted by other people’s works
That I could have created myself.
And I am constantly disappointed by them.
Sadly, I have to recognize them
For what they are: inferior versions
Of what I could have done
If I’d been insecure enough in my abilities
To do anything.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations

“I had a feeling once. I wonder what happened to it.”
― John Tottenham

“SONG OF DAWN

I saw the sun rise by accident.
It was a horrible sight.
Annoyed by its splendor, I sought refuge
in a moist pillow, and lay there, alone,
at the dawn of another day,
that brought me closer to another death,
pondering the vanity of my solitude,
the vanity of procrastination,
and the tiresome inevitability of waking up
again the same person.
It might still be possible to change,
but obstinately I remain the same,
hoping that others might take solace
in my consistency.
But perhaps they take no solace in it,
perhaps they too find it tedious.”
― John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment

“Whenever I’m in a relationship I feel as if I’m being unfaithful to myself.”
― John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment

“I always assume that people I admire are single.”
― John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment

“Q: "Do these people ever shut up?"

A: "Never. They're afraid to shut up, because if they do, they'll have to hear themselves think, and all they'll hear will be silence. The less someone has to say, the more they say. No banality or triviality is off the table as far as subject matter is concerned. Were it not for stating the obvious in ready-made phrases, they would never speak. One almost never overhears intelligent conversation in public. Think about it: How often is one struck with the thought: What a rich, sonorous voice that man has; 'he is expressing himself so eloquently upon such a worthy subject"? Never. The emptier one's mind, the louder and faster they talk, and the more reliant they are upon clichés as a means of communication. Because they have no thoughts to speak of, they never shut up. They fear the silence that will confirm their emptiness, and fill it with mindless gabble and amplified insincerity. If they gave themselves time to think, they'd never say anything; it would be too taxing on their meager resources. An empty head is necessary in order to endlessly keep talking; the emptiness serves as a sort of fuel. As well as ignorance, it takes a certain amount of arrogance to loudly conduct a private conversation in public. Most thoughtful and sensitive members of society, or even polite outcasts, don't shout in public; they keep their voices down, not wanting to inflict their utterances upon strangers. Some people never shut up. I can't talk for that long, ever.”
― John Tottenham, Service

“Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my life.”
― John Tottenham

“Whenever I'm in a relationship
I feel as if I'm being unfaithful
to myself.”
― John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment

“And what have I learned
from all these affairs of the heart?
One thing only, and that
what I knew to begin with:
that I have no business being in one at all.”
― John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment

“I feel as if I don’t have time
To do anything. So I do nothing
Other than remind myself
Of what I should be doing,
And admonish myself for not doing it.
I tell myself to be patient.
But I don’t have time for patience anymore.
I don’t have time for time.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations:

“Of another tedious shift of exhausting agitation,
It occurs to me, once again, that over the course of this day
I have made no contribution to anybody else’s life.
I haven’t even made a contribution to my own life.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations:

“It is strange to consider
That I once actually had a future.
And It is becoming difficult to look back
With any pleasure upon my past. A lostness
Washes through me, freighted with bitter nostalgia.
I am reminded of a time of hope that never materialized
And I find that the past itself has become tainted
By the future.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations:

“WINDSONG

I have a heart like a wheelbarrow,
there are no windmills in my mind.
Love blows in and floats around freely
like the wind - getting in the way
of other things.

This rootless love without design,
which has no object, point or point of origin -
one looks for it in every face,
looking for somebody to become that place
where everything that falls apart
falls into place.

It seeks definition, a place of rest,
to find its home in a woman's breast -
to die there, or multiply there.
When, surely to keep it to oneself
would be best.

The Hate Poems
John Tottenham”
― John Tottenham, The Hate Poems

“Time spent alone, to others unknown:
Black and white afternoons,
Sallow evenings and discolored nights
Spent grasping for distraction;
Glancing at moments
That could have been savored -
That will disappear, unaccounted for, forgotten,
Along with everything else, even by myself.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations:

“You looked away
when we passed each other on the street.
Then you disappeared again,
and your life was complete.

The Hate Poems, p.54
John Tottenham”
― John Tottenham, The Hate Poems

“I am, at least, master of my own downfall.”
― John Tottenham

“Cast further adrift by this subtle urgency,
I can feel my precious life ebbing away.
Better to be a recluse than a loose wreck,
a small fish in a pond instead of lost at sea.
Erudition without motivation cuts no ice around here;
the extent of my ambition is shabby gentility.

The Hate Poems
John Tottenham”
― John Tottenham, The Hate Poems

“As you cling to me affectionately,
covering me with tender kisses,
I visualize you, in great detail,
melting beneath the thrusts of another,
and imagine how much I'll miss you,
once I've finally succeeded in alienating you.”
― John Tottenham, The Hate Poems

“I can go from biting loneliness
to social claustrophobia - and back -
in ten seconds flat.

The Hate Poems
John Tottenham”
― John Tottenham, The Hate Poems

“I will love you more
if you let me hurt you.
Your readiness to endure my pain creates a disheartening closeness that I would rather live without.
But if deprived of it, I will want it again.
Until this sweetness, never free
and usually painful, finally dries up.”
― John Tottenham, Antiepithalamia: & Other Poems of Regret & Resentment

“MY BRILLIANT NON-CAREER

I often tell myself that I could have done anything
I applied myself to. When, out of all the things I could have
Applied myself to, I applied myself to doing nothing.
And found that I couldn't even do that.
The notion that I should have been doing something
Kept getting in the way.
And now, of course, it is too late
To do anything: It has always been too late.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations:

“Mornings are spent preparing for activity.
Nights are spent recovering from inactivity.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations:

“Days when certain atmospheric conditions prevail:
A climate of hopeless, against which it is useless to struggle,
And equally useless to surrender to.”
― John Tottenham, The Inertia Variations:

“SENSE AND INSENSIBILITY

You fell just far enough
to break your fall, losing it
while being careful not to lose it all.
A struggle embraced conditionally,
that you could emerge from victoriously,
with enhanced credibility.

The Hate Poems
John Tottenham”
― John Tottenham, The Hate Poems