Sarina Stebe > Sarina's Quotes

“On the plane leaving Tokyo I’m sitting alone in back twisting the knobs on Etch-A-Sketch and Roger is next to me singing “Over the Rainbow” straight into my ear, things changing, falling apart, fading, another year, a few more moves, a hard person who doesn’t give a fuck, a boredom so monumental it humbles, arrangements so fleeting made by people you don’t even know that it requires you to lose any sense of reality you might have once acquired, expectations so unreasonable you become superstitious about ever matching them. Roger offers me a joint and I take a drag and stare out the window and I relax for a moment when the lights of Tokyo, which I never realized is an island, vanish from view but this feeling only lasts a moment because Roger is telling me that other lights in other cities, in other countries, on other planets, are coming into view soon.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, The Informers

“... Because the writer resented that she had turned to me I became the handsome and dazed narrator, incapable of love or kindness. That's how I became the damaged party boy who wandered through the wreckage, blood streaming from his nose, asking questions that never required answers. That's how I became the boy who never understood how anything worked. That's how I became the boy who wouldn't save a friend. That's how I became the boy who couldn't love the girl.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Imperial Bedrooms

“My books have all been very deeply felt. You don’t spend eight years of your life working on a trendy knockoff. In that sense I’ve been serious. But I don’t do lots of things that other serious writers do. I don’t write book reviews. I don’t sit on panels about the state of the novel. I don’t go to writer conferences. I don’t teach writing seminars. I don’t hang out at Yaddo or MacDowell. I’m not concerned with my reputation as a writer and where I stand relative to other writers. I’m not competitive or professionally ambitious. I don’t think about my work and my career in an overarching or systematic way. I don’t think about myself, as I think most writers do, as progressing toward some ideal of greatness. There’s no grand plan. All I know is that I write the books I want to write. All that other stuff is meaningless to me.”
― Bret Easton Ellis

“Baby, Andy once said that beauty is a sign of intelligence.'
She turns slowly to look at me. 'Who, Victor? Who? Andy who?' She coughs, blowing her nose. 'Andy Kaufman? Andy Griffith? Who in the hell told you this? Andy Rooney?'
'Warhol,' I say softly, hurt. 'Baby...”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Glamorama

“suddenly I’m seized by a minor anxiety attack. There are too many fucking movies to choose from.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“You're a beautiful boy, Clay, but that's about it.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero

“On the issue of drugs, we wir classical liberals, vehemently opposed tae state intervention in any form.”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“Sex generally makes them intae real relationships, or ends them. Ye go backwards or forwards after shagging, but maintaining the status quo is difficult.”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“Without this kickstart to my day, I'd be lost. A day without a morning run is a day you fumble through, rather than one you attack.”
― Irvine Welsh, The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins

“Ah fuckin hate the way some American cunts call lassies cunts. Fuckin offensive, that shite.”
― Irvine Welsh, Dead Men's Trousers

“Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah'm gaunnae huv a short life, am ah sound mind, etcetera, etcetera, but still want tae use smack? They won't let ye dae it. They won't let ye dae it, because it's seen as a sign ay thir ain failure. The fact that ye jist simply choose tae reject whut they huv tae offer. Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.”
― Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

“We'd be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

“The brutal reality of politics would be probably intolerable without drugs.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

“Writing is the flip side of sex - it's only good when it's over.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“And yet she was wholly herself: a rarity.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“But I couldn’t. It was real; I knew it, even in the dark. Raised yellow streak of paint on the wing and feathers scratched in with the butt of the brush. One chip on the upper left edge that hadn’t been there before, tiny mar less than two millimeters, but otherwise: perfect. I was different, but it wasn’t. And as the light flickered over it in bands, I had the queasy sense of my own life, in comparison, as a patternless and transient burst of energy, a fizz of biological static just as random as the street lamps flashing past.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Madness--that's all they have, after working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Going mad is their only way of staying sane.”
― JG Ballard

“Mrs Wilder stood passively with her tray, unaware of Royal fondling her, partly because she had been molested by so many men during the past months, but also because the sexual assault itself had ceased to have any meaning.”
― J.G. Ballard, High-Rise

“What's been happening?"
"Nothing... It's already happened”
― J.G. Ballard, High-Rise

“It had not occurred to me that sexual games could be played with an unborn child.”
― J.G. Ballard, The Kindness of Women

“Each man is an island unto itself" - Strangman”
― J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World

“If the onset of wrinkles in middle age were referred to as laughter lines, then to look at him, Scott thought, Twinkle's life must have been hilarious. He had sharp eyes that often seemed to visually contradict the lack of intelligence that could be derived from listening to him talk. There might not be a lot to respect in Twinkle, but Scott liked him. He just didn't want to end up like him.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Sometimes he missed the numbed, walking-underwater feeling feel that the cocktail of narcotics used to give him. But if a situation went down in here, he was going to need all of his wits to get out of it.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“He dropped the phone back onto its cradle, began to turn around and felt a sudden ice-cold furrow open up in his side. Strength drained from his legs, and a moment later he sank to his knees. There was warmth now that ran over the initial and persistent cold.

Mohammed was confused, and barely noticed the briefcase being removed from his grip. He heard the click of a cell phone opening, and a soft beeping as a number was dialed.

'The package is in my possession,' a female voice said, and the phone clicked shut.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“Remove the comma, replace the comma, remove the comma, replace the comma...”
― R.D. Ronald

“Solitude led to retrospective thinking, and if the past is what you are trying to get away from, then constant distractions in the present are needed.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“Blood began to flow, at first cautiously, as if embarrassed by its appearance; a few thin red lines exploring the gravitational trajectory of its new terrain. Now it flowed faster, steadily staining her pale flesh a horrific red.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950’s. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“Oh love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me. I'll be anybody you want me to be.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“The most boring thing in the entire world is nudity. The second most boring thing is honesty.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters