Saz Gee > Saz's Quotes

“I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

“The tiger will never lie down with the lamb; he acknowledges no pact that is not reciprocal. The lamb must learn to run with the tigers.”
― Angela Carter

“No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed.”
― A.S. Byatt, Possession

“The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.”
― Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus

“I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.”
― Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life

“A boy standing in the rain, and what is he thinking?”
― Joe Sacco, Palestine

“There was nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Drowning Pool

“A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”
― Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

“From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”
― Raymond Chandler, The High Window

“Those are the voices of my brothers, darling; I love the company of wolves.”
― Angela Carter, Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories

“How true it was that one needed to be seen by others to be sure of one's own existence.”
― A.S. Byatt, Possession

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.”
― Charles Bukowski