David Demchuk > Quotes

“Good children do taste better, but there are so few of them. If you can be satisfied with naughty children, you will always have food on the table. They are never in short supply.”
― David Demchuk, The Bone Mother

“Sometimes--after everything and everyone has been stripped from us--sometimes being queer is about being the last one standing.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“Some stories need to be told time and again. Every generation forgets. Every child learns anew.”
― David Demchuk, The Bone Mother

“This is to say: There are frightening things in the world, things that hunt by instinct, that watch and stalk and corner and seize and shake us to death, fling our remains where they may never be found--and then in the next breath rush to their masters for a gentle pat on the head. In that one raw moment we can just un-exist, as if the Earth--or something inside the Earth--has opened its maw and devoured us whole.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“At least for a while, it was better to be seen as a monster than to remain unseen. However, in our zeal to use the genre to portray some aspect of ourselves, what we most often revealed--or were required to reveal--was our self-hatred. For queer readers, hatred, and self-hatred, were the stinging medicines we were forced to consume if we were to satisfy our need to see ourselves.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt; Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“Knitting is a good way to pass the time when you're waiting for something to die.”
― David Demchuk, The Bone Mother

“All the churches are on Queen Street and all the queens are on Church Street,” as the old saying goes.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“Trace was up at the flip chart listing trans movie and tv role models, arguing that Dynasty’s Krystle Carrington as played by Linda Evans was definitely covertly mtf. The other role models were Martine Beswick in Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Tura Satana in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, the secretary in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (“Edie McClurg!” Sydney shouted), and Jodie Foster in Candleshoe.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“He is coming for us, I know he is
Monsters go where they can feed
We will see him soon”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“I wanted to cry—tried to will myself to cry—but no tears would come. I was numb from all that had happened, from all that was about to happen. It was sit still and be silent, or scream and scream and scream.”
― David Demchuk, The Butcher's Daughter: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett

“This month, it was Genderation X. In December, it was TransCanada Truck Stop.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“The more we were accepted and embraced, the more a persistent hateful minority wanted to see us suffer.”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“Yet even now, though our every footstep is tracked and traced by a thousand unblinking eyes, our every stripe is swiped and every chip is checked, as every search and view and click is absorbed into our history, we still can slip from sight, simply cease to be. Those who watch over us can rewind and review, zoom and freeze, can lean in, pressing their thousand faces to a thousand screens, and observe the precise moment when light is swallowed by shadow, when sound is deadening by silence, when someone curls like paper touched by a flame and reaches and blackens and crumbles into ash, into dust. But if they watch, what will they see? And what will they do?”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“Suddenly my cellphone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. A message from Riva, just one word: RUN A low rumbling hum caught my ear and I looked up the road to see a trio of cars, low and dark, no headlights, just making the turn towards me. RUN”
― David Demchuk, The Bone Mother

“That’s Vaseline Tower,”
― David Demchuk, Red X

“Maybe it seems fantastic, but the world is such a peculiar place, I’ve learned that people you thought you’d never see again find their way back to you. You’ve been tied to them all along and didn’t know it. And others you loved and built your life around were taken from you forever.”
― David Demchuk, The Butcher's Daughter: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett