Calliope Lagunas > Calliope 's Quotes

“I believe in a messy, imperfect world where we just, collectively or individually, figure things out.”
― Margaret Killjoy, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion

“Besides, a life without freedom to choose is not worth having.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police. Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread. Only folk whose heads are muddled by expensive educations think truth, beauty, goodness are rare private properties. Nature is more liberal. The universe keeps nothing essential from us — it is all present, all gift. God is the universe plus mind. Those who say God, or the universe, or nature is mysterious, are like those who call these things jealous or angry. They are announcing the state of their lonely, muddled minds.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“...there were certain chapters when I stopped writing, saw the domestic situation I was in and thought, "I don't want to face this world, let's get back to the hellish one I'm imagining.”
― Alasdair Gray

“You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes of changes.”
― Alasdair Gray, Lanark

“I clenched my teeth and fists to stop them biting and scratching these clever men who want no care for the helpless sick small, who use religions and politics to stay comfortably superior to all that pain: who make religions and politics, excuses to spread misery with fire and sword and how could I stop all this? I did not know what to do.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“Dear God I am tired. It is late. Writing like Shakespeare is hard work for a woman with a cracked head who cannot spell properly.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“She also said the wicked people needed love as much as good people and were much better at it.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“One day you will tell me how to change what I cannot yet describe without my words swelling HUGE, vowels vanishing, tears washing ink away.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“It's not really giving up our freedom to be close with people. Because freedom only exists in relation to other people.”
― Margaret Killjoy, The Barrow Will Send What it May

“Death is really simple for the dead but it’s really complicated for everyone else.”
― Margaret Killjoy, We Won't Be Here Tomorrow and Other Stories

“Men will do anything if they think it's in the best interest of some woman they love," said Gertrude. "Whether or not the woman agrees.”
― Margaret Killjoy, The Barrow Will Send What it May

“Of all the ways to die, I think being pummeled to death by trashy hetero romance novels might be the worst. Or best.”
― Margaret Killjoy, The Barrow Will Send What it May

“The thing about killing Nazis is it's a net gain on human life. The other thing about killing Nazis is that for some indiscernible reason, it's illegal.”
― Margaret Killjoy, It Bleeds It Burrows It Breaks the Bone

“A FREE MARKET SHOULD MEAN EVERYTHING IS FREE.”
― Margaret Killjoy, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion

“Everyone finds meaning in different ways. I found meaning by believing in some shit we made up, in letting that be real.”
― Margaret Killjoy, We Won't Be Here Tomorrow and Other Stories

“Invisible things are the only realities.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Loss of Breath

“Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability.”
― H.P. Lovecraft

“At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.”
― H.P. Lovecraft

“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“The past can't hurt you anymore. Not unless you let it. They made you into a victim, Evey. They made you into a statistic. But, that's not the real you. That's not who you are inside.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“There's a notion I'd like to see buried: the ordinary person. Ridiculous. There is no ordinary person.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“In an era of stress and anxiety, when the present seems unstable and the future unlikely, the natural response is to retreat and withdraw from reality, taking recourse either in fantasies of the future or in modified visions of a half-imagined past.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“To me, all creativity is magic. Ideas start out in the empty void of your head - and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It's an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that's not the most important thing. It's the work itself.”
― Alan Moore

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
― Albert Camus

“At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.”
― Albert Camus

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
― Albert Camus

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959