Experimental Chimp

Quotes

None of that insipid inspirational trash here. Just random quotations that caught my eye and resonate with some kind of meaning to me.

Literature

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
    — Jack Kerouac, On The Road

There is only one thing which interests me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in books. Nobody, so far as I can see, is making use of those elements in the air which gives direction and motivation to our lives. Only the killers seem to be extracting from life some satisfactory measure of what they are putting into it. The age demands violence, but we are getting only abortive explosions. Revolutions are nipped in the bud, or else succeed too quickly. Passion is quickly exhausted. Men fall back on ideas, comme d’habitude. Nothing is proposed that can last more than twenty-four hours. We are living a million lives in the space of a generation. In the study of entomology, or of deep sea life, or cellular activity we derive more…
    — Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark.
    — Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Just kidding,” said Nagasawa. “Anyway, be happy. I get the feeling a lot of shit is going to come your way, but you’re a stubborn bastard. I’m sure you’ll handle it. Mind if I give you one piece of advice?”

“Go ahead.”

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” he said. “Only assholes do that.”
    — Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.
    — Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathed, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at 4 o’clock in the morning.
    — Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

We never know other people’s secret thoughts, Ponsonby. Does Harold Wilson dream about being a ping-pong champion? Did General Smuts have a thing about ear wax? The history books are silent. So, you see, we never know quite how abnormal we are. Perhaps we’re all terrified we’re abnormal and we’re all quite normal. Or perhaps we’re terrified we’re normal and really we’re abnormal. It’s all very complicated. Perhaps it’s best to be born a cat, but you don’t get the choice.
    — David Nobbs, The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin

I just don’t want to die without a few scars, I say. It’s nothing any more to have a beautiful stock body. You see those cars that are completely stock cherry, right out of a dealer’s showroom in 1955, I always think, what a waste.
    — Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.
    — Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.
    — Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

Life is essentially playful. Of course, it plays a bit rough at times.
    — Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Lyrics

God knows I know I’ve thrown away those graces.
    — Tori Amos, Blood Roses

it’s real early morning
no-one is awake
I’m back at my cliff
still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
on their way down
I follow with my eyes ’till they crash
imagine what my body would sound like
slamming against those rocks
    — Bjork, Hyper-Ballad

Brothers and sisters
Rebuild your lives
We’re all drug takers
Give us something tonight.
    — Blur, Brothers and Sisters

My mother said to get things done
You’d better not mess with Major Tom
    — David Bowie, Ashes to Ashes

People are strange when you’re a stranger.
Faces look ugly when you’re alone.
Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted.
Streets are uneven when you’re down.
When you’re strange, faces come out of the rain.
When you’re strange, no-one remembers your name.
When you’re strange. When you’re strange. When you’re strange.
    — The Doors, People Are Strange

Feeling scared today
Write down “I am ok”
A hundred times the doctors say
I am ok
I am ok
I’m not ok
    — Eels, Electro-Shock Blues

Step on a crack break your mother’s heart
Red light green light black
Suicide e-mail do not delete
Plug it back in the jack
Start to be what they want you to be
And you see yourself as they see you
    — Eels, The Medication Is Wearing Off

He’s a boy, you want a girl so tear off his cock
tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want.
    — Manic Street Preachers, Yes

I eat and I dress and I wash
and I still can say thank you
Puking – shaking – sinking
I still stand for old ladies
Can’t shout, can’t scream,
hurt myself to get pain out
    — Manic Street Preachers, Yes

I was dancing
With your shadow
Slow down memories hall
I said ‘wait have I been seduced and forgotten’
You said ‘Baby haven’t we all’
    — New Radicals, Crying Like a Church on Monday

something inside of me
has opened up its eyes
why did you put it there?
did you not realize?
something inside of me
it screams the loudest sound
sometimes i think i could

i’m gonna burn this whole world down
i’m gonna burn this whole world down
    — Nine Inch Nails, Burn

i’m writing on a little piece of paper
i’m hoping someday you might find
well i’ll hide it behind something
they won’t look behind
    — Nine Inch Nails, Every Day is Exactly the Same

god is dead and no one cares
if there is a hell i’ll see you there
    — Nine Inch Nails, Heresy

what have i become?
my sweetest friend
everyone i know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of shit
i will let you down
i will make you hurt
    — Nine Inch Nails, Hurt

We were born to lose.
    — Placebo, Bruise Pristine

The room is cold and has been like this for several months.
If I close my eyes I can visualise everything in it right down
Right down to the broken handle on the third drawer down of the dressing table.
And the world outside this room has also assumed a familiar shape
The same events stuffed in a slightly different order each day.
Just like a modern shopping centre.
    — Pulp, F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E

It’s there that no one will stare
At your jaws and the long fur
The claws in your fingers.

It’s in the past when the passersby laughed
At your strange way of speaking
Your batteries leaking
Oh no

Oh God no
They don’t know
The New Zero
    — Rasputina, The New Zero

Are you looking to drive my dreams?
You here to run my screens?
You come, deliver my demons
Hooray, hooray, hip hip hooray
    — R.E.M., I Don’t Sleep, I Dream

emptiness is loneliness, and loneliness
is cleanliness
and cleanliness is godliness, and god is empty
just like me
    — Smashing Pumpkins, Zero

Don’t you realize evil lives in the motherfucking skin?
    — System of a Down, Soil

When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge:
I don’t want the world. I just want your half.
    — They Might Be Giants, Ana Ng

Come down.
Get off your fuckin cross.
We need the fuckin space to nail the next fool martyr.
    — Tool, Eulogy

All you read and
Wear or see and
Hear on TV
Is a product
Begging for your
Fatass dirty
Dollar

So…Shut up and

Buy my new record
Send more money
Fuck you, buddy.
    — Tool, Hooker With A Penis

Why can’t we not be sober?
I just want to start things over.
Why can’t we drink forever?
I just want to start this over.
    — Tool, Sober

Well I got a bad liver and a broken heart
yea I drunk me a river since you tore me apart
and I don’t have a drinking problem
cept when I can’t get a drink
and I wish you’d a known her
we were quite a pair
she was sharp as a razor
and soft as a prayer
    — Tom Waits, Bad Liver and a Broken Heart

Hell and heaven below
All the trees are gone
The rain makes a lovely sound
To those who are six feet under ground
    — Tom Waits, No One Knows I’m Gone

now the dogs are barking
and the taxi cabs parking
a lot they can do for me
I begged you to stab me
you tore my shirt open
and I’m down on my knees tonight
    — Tom Waits, Tom Traubert’s Blues

Things People Said

Pornography is good.
All drugs should be legal.
War is wrong.
The rich get richer.
The poor get poorer.
Thank you I’ll be here all week.
    — Bill Hicks

I’m tired of this back-slapping ‘aren’t humanity neat’ bullshit. We’re a virus with shoes. OK? That’s all we are.
    — Bill Hicks, Rant in E-Minor

How sweet! You still believe in death… that’s just so… quaint. Well, sorry to pop your death bubble, but there’s no such thing. So make the best of things. Any real belief in death is just wishful thinking. Don’t waste good drugs on killing yourself. Share them with friends and have a party. Or send them to me.
    — Chuck Palahniuk, “You Ask The Questions”, The Independent Review, 25th March 2004

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
    — Alfred Adler

If you understand, things are as they are.
If you do not understand, things are as they are.
    — Gensha

We have no power to prevent ourselves being born: but we can rectify this error – for it is sometimes an error. When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable things possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.
    — Friedrich Nietzsche

I don’t do drugs anymore. They interfere with the Prozac, lithium, Viagra, and painkillers.
    — P.J. O’Rourke