The vocation of each writer is to describe the world as he or she sees it anything more than that is advertising.
You don’t stop loving someone just because you hate them.
People go their whole lives wanting to be admired for their hidden qualities.
But you’re beautiful, and the beautiful should be given whatever they want.””Hey, what about the ugly ones?””The ugly ones.” She poked her tongue out. “It’s their fault if their ugly. They’re to be blamed, not pitied.
Intelligence and effort can be no compensation for ugliness.
I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.
I have learned that the libido, like Elvis and jealousy, never dies. I know copulators of eighty-five. Who said you need an erection, a body or an orgasm for sex?
Sex is like art: if you know what you’re doing, you don’t know what you’re doing.
There’s a lot of degradation in sex, isn’t there?”“When it’s done right.
You see, I have come to believe in self-help, individual initiative, the love of what you do, and the full development of all individuals. I am constantly disappointed by how little we expect of ourselves and of the world.
As it was, she always did whatever occurred to her, which was, admittedly, not difficult for someone in her position, coming from a background where rick of failure was minimal; in fact, you had to work hard to fail in her world.
I don’t like being left for long struggling with my dangerous self.
Yes, Eleanor loathed herself and yet required praise, which she then never believed.
He was, after all, just a man. And not merely a narrative.
Just as my body had changed at puberty, now I was developing a sense of guilt, a sense not only of how I appeared to others, but of how I appeared to myself, especially in violating self-imposed prohibitions.
Women only wear beautiful clothes so that men will want to remove them.
Falling in love was simple; one had only to yield. Digesting another person, however, and sustaining love, was bloody work, and not a soft job.
Being in love means being at the mercy of someone’s childhood.
Popeye the Sailor Man has more cultural longevity. Only women and poofs read or write now. Otherwise, these days, no sooner has someone been sodomised by a close relative than they think they can write a memoir. The game’s up.
Act – make an event. Smash the coordinates and see where the smithereens fly. Let in the madness, and be sure to be a danger to oneself and others. Too much thinking turns you into that fool Hamlet.
I’m using Mao as my inspiration. “Cast away illusions. Prepare for struggle.” I’m back in business, baby. You don’t know you’re stuck until you get moving.
I’ve said before, Harry, no need to hide your light,” said Alice, squeezing his hand. She giggled, “Dance, monkey, dance.
I admired him more than anyone but I didn’t wish him well. It was that I preferred him to me and wanted to be him. I coveted his talents, face, style. I wanted to wake up with them all transferred to me.
How many artists have created while drunk, high on laudanum, opium, chloral or amphetamines? What have antidepressants ever done for culture?
I can only think how good life on earth can be, at times. What grief two people can give to one another! And what pleasure!
My son, there may be a time when I explain these things to you, because there may be a time when I understand them.
Now, watching her sleep, and closing his eyes, he felt, in this particular intimacy – stowed beneath her duvet – that he was intruding. At the same time, he knew, settling down, you couldn´t dislike anyone you’d seen sleep
When Victor Hugo was buried, you couldn’t find a whore in all of Paris. They were too busy paying their respects. That was a man – and he still has a show on in the West End.