Kj Quotes

[Blog post, March 10, 2014]

What the fuck, what the fucking, bloody devil-shit, what in the name of Satan's swollen cock was that?

When I fuck you, Mr. Day, it will not be briefly. It will be long and hard and extremely thorough. I'm going to take pains with you.

Secretly, deep down, everybody on Earth believes they can write poetry, apart from the members of the Poets' Guild, who know they can't.

I like the way he says ‘furthermore’,” Merrick observed quietly. “Cos you can tell he means ‘wankers’.

I am in the process of nailing Mr. Humphrey Griffin to the wall so thoroughly that future generations will mistake him for a tapestry,...

Basic fact of life: no matter how far you run, you always take yourself with you.

My life changed four months ago, and I utterly failed to understand that until just recently, and therefore… I may have omitted to tell you that I love you.” He took a breath. “That’s all.

I like to make you know your master,” Crane said. “It's only fair. The rest of the time you've got me so thoroughly enslaved, I might as well be wearing a collar with your name on it.

When I have you, sweet boy, it will be because you want me to. Not against your better judgment, not in spite of my surname, and definitely not to annoy your aunt." Stephen went red, but his voice was defiant. "Well, what was that, then?" Crane shrugged. "You seemed tense.

A wise man once said that any human being is capable of infinite achievement, so long as it’s not the work they’re supposed to be doing.

He turned away, and suddenly she thought about the old children's story, where the stupid girl opens the box that God gave her, and all the evils of the world fly out, except Hope, which stays at the bottom; and she wondered what Hope was doing in there in the first place, in with all the bad things. Then the answer came to her, and she wondered how she could've been so stupid. Hope was in there because it was evil too, probably the worst of them all, so heavy with malice and pain that it couldn't drag itself out of the opened box.

Don't you see? The catastrophe is me. My very existence is an affront to everything that is natural and good.

But— Why didn’t you say?” “Secret agent. Secret.

The world is full of annoyances, none more infuriating than a fool with a valid point.

A story without an ending is an unbearable itch to the reader.

Two death sentences? Really? I mean, you look very well, considering.

War is an admission of failure

I rarely ask for suggestions, because, when I do, people tend to make them.

And he owned a lot of books, although just now and then, when it got dark and the shelves loomed over him, he got the feeling that they owned him.

I like to let them talk things out, but fact isn’t a democratic process; if a thing isn’t true it isn’t true, even if everybody votes that it is.

There is something very old and odd and quite unpleasant about this house." "Yes, its Graham." Stephan grinned and followed him into the long room.

There really were no chains like the ones in your head.

Jesus!” he yelped. “I fear not,” said a silky voice, and Curtis realised that he had collided with da Silva. “Both Jewish, of course, but the resemblance ends there.

Dear me, Mr. Day. You really do love to get fucked on desks, don't you? Put you on a desk, and you're begging for it. What is so particularly exciting about desks?

Sometimes it’s not about being stronger. It’s about being smarter.

Somewhere there are gardens where peacocks sing like nightingales, somewhere there are caravans of separated lovers traveling to meet each other; there are ruby fires on distant mountains, and blue comets that come in spring like sapphires in the black sky. If this is not so, meet me in the shameful yard, and we will plant a gallows tree, and swing like sad pendulums, never once touching.

Stephen can, of course, use my power, for two reasons. Firstly, because it’s his, just as all I am and all I have are his. Not that he ever asks, of course. I’m not sure that he quite believes it.” He looked round at Stephen, a rueful smile dawning, ignoring Fairley’s loud noises of disgust. “But I do hope you are aware, my sweet, somewhere in that absurd heart, that I am ever, entirely, and quite pathetically yours.

This is what I keep telling you, Saint. You have to think," Stephen said. "If you'd put a knee in his groin first, you could probably have punched him in the face as well when he went over.

wise man once said, the difference between luck and a wheelbarrow is, luck doesn’t work if you push it.

You look like the cat that swallowed the cream," Stephen said softly. "That comes later.

Thank God they were British. He took a deep breath. “Cup of tea?

What I say is, one can be as moral as one likes but one should have the courtesy to do it in private, like any other bad habit.

If you can’t be happy, then be something else. Be useful, that would be good. Decorative, if you like. Selfish, if you must. But don’t whine about it.

A wise man once said, it’s not the despair that destroys you, it’s the hope.

The more love you give, the more you are capable of giving. It's only when you shut off the source that it dries up.

You're remarkably uninteresting for a flying trollop.

I mention this because that’s how the world changes. It’s either so quick that we never know what hit us, or so gradual that we don’t notice.

It’s a bizarre but widespread myth that only heroes have good qualities, and the only qualities heroes have are good; villains are, by definition, all bad. Bullshit.

The quickest way to a man`s heart,' said the instructor, 'is proverbially through his stomach. But if you want to get into his brain, I recommend the eye-socket.

Everyone can do evil. Some people can be forced to it, and some fight against it, and some don't even need an invitation.

But I do hope you are aware, my sweet, somewhere in that absurd heart, that I am ever, entirely, and quite pathetically yours.

Libraries are the granary of the spirit, without which we could not survive the siege.

Country folk fuck,” Corvin said. “Well, they must; it’s not as if other entertainments present themselves. Plant things, dig things, knit things, fuck things. Make cheese.

How can anyone doubt the existence of God when evidence of His sense of humour surrounds us on all sides?

Why do we count the cost of change, but not the cost of the world staying the same?

Often the pain that makes us feel most stuck is not our suffering; it is experiencing distress in the presence of people who expect us to get better faster than we can.

Scars are always beautiful. They're proof we lived.

I'm a very busy man" Crane said. "But I suppose I could force myself back here, lick you all over till you're begging for my cock, and then fuck you so hard they'll hear you screaming in the street. If you insist

Holt gave a modest shrug. “I can hold my own.” “I dare say you have to,” murmured da Silva.

You like 'em dangerous, that's your trouble. If they ain't leaving a trail of dead, you ain't interested.

Cyprian didn’t shrug—a servant of his calibre would never do such a thing—but his entire demeanor implied a shrug.

Living with long-term suffering in American culture feels like being off-key. Suffering quiets and slows, but our culture prefers a crescendo.

We live in a miserable world, where the best we can honestly hope for is that one empty, meaningless day will follow another without things getting actively worse.

Personally, I always feel that survival is cheap at any price and it puzzles me that so many men in authority don’t seem to see it that way.

A beautiful thing was much harder to destroy than an ugly thing.

No.” Leo grinned reminiscently. “Tom was the most lawless man I ever knew. He always said he never let a friend down—” “But sometimes people didn’t know they weren’t friends any more until it was too late.

People create poetry and mustard gas. We invent gods and monsters and gods that might as well be monsters. We act with extraordinary grace and unfathomable cruelty. We're so terribly intelligent, and dreadfully easy to fool.

My dear chap, this is a bookshop. There’s never anywhere better to be.

If you’re going to be insolent, at least pour me coffee.” “It’s brewing. Like trouble.

If the world is a book, are you the hero, or just a walk-on part?

I should rather be a loyal liar than an honest traitor.

Some people had strong views on attacking a man from behind. Well, Will did himself, those views being that it was an excellent idea, best done with a blade. He missed the Messer.

You do know that bad people aren’t generally redeemed by the love of a good woman, or man, don’t you? Most people don’t change, and if they do, it’s not because of someone else.

I'd call you a whore but you're nothing so honest

Of the people, by the people, for the people. I can’t remember offhand where that quote comes from; it was something to do with some bunch of wild-eyed idealists overthrowing the tyrant so they could become tyrants themselves. No good will have come of it, you can be sure. The people; God help us.

Arrogant , beautiful, domineering Lord Crane, with the caring that made Stephen’s heart break, and the vicious streak that made his knees bend, had chosen him among all the men’s men of London, and treated him with a loyalty, generosity and almost painful honesty that made Stephen’s heart hurt. And his reward was a few doled-out crumbs of Stephen’s time in a country he hated.

At that moment, he realised that he did not exist to her in the same way that he existed in his own perception. She held a copied version, an interpretation of him, filtered through the matrix of her priorities and desires. Therefore, surely, he only held a copy of her.

I think once an author is attacking people for leaving Amazon reviews, common sense has shut up shop and gone home, and the best thing to do is not engage at all.

In the end, having no compass for his desires, he yielded to his nature.

I love you,” Julius observed at last. “To a degree that frankly startles me.

He wished he had words for what Kim was, the aching pain and the starlight, the beauty and the ugliness.

But Kim had wanted him anyway, and he’d fought accordingly, until he got it through Will’s thick skull that it was time to stop seeing where they went and start heading there on purpose

Common sense dictates that any voice you hear inside your head must be just you, thinking; so, if you know it’s just you and you know you’re basically an idiot, what possesses you to do what the stupid voice tells you?

There is no absolute right or wrong, good or evil, but there are good manners and common decency.

He had rid my inherited house of a lustful ghost, opened my eyes to a concealed world of strange forces and arcane knowledge, and buggered me twice.

See, this is why I hate Google. You come across one site, match one symptom, and all of a sudden you’re dying of carbon monoxide poisoning or cancer of the big toe.

In that moment, he truly did look like the Unseelie King. Like a dark fairy tale. Like a terrible dream.

If there’s one truth in this life, it’s that you simply can’t win. The most you can achieve is to make a nuisance of yourself, for a very short time.

It`s remarkable the truly stupid things people can do because it`s expected of them, or they think it`s expected of them.

Would I like sodomy?” “That is without a doubt the best question that has ever been asked. English was invented purely so that you could ask that.

Grasping to find the purpose in your pain may be the very thing preventing you from experiencing comfort and even transformation in your suffering.

God, give me patience or an untraceable handgun, I thought.

Kim was starlight and privilege; Will had his feet firmly fixed in the mud. They didn’t belong together. Except they did.

Stephen rubbed at his face. “Look, I have three choices. I never see you again so I’m not tempted; I give in to temptation and milk you for power until I’m a raging madman; or I control myself. I don’t like the first two options.

There are a number of recommended methods of dealing with ghosts—salt and iron, harmonic resonance, some people swear by exorcism, and not just the priests—but that's the fist time I've seen anyone try a left hook.

Heroic," Crane told Baines contemptuously. "Old women, idiot children, bound men, you'll take on all comers. There's a three-legged stray dog hangs around the lanes here. Perhaps someday you could work up to kicking that.

How can something feel so fucking right and also, so incredibly wrong?

I like it here. I just want to walk the wind, watch you play rugby. Make kites for Agnes and do things, when I can—and come to bed with you at the end of the day. I’ve stopped running.” “You fell?” “I landed.

Memories are tricky; there’s what you remember, and what you think you remember, the editions and redactions of memory, the corrections and amendations and blundered readings and the whole apparatus criticus of the conscious mind trying to make bread out of soup.

Every man is entitled to his beliefs.” “Yes, any man has a right to his beliefs, and a duty to question them too,” Raven retorted. “If you don’t take out your beliefs for washing now and again, they’re just bad habits.

You wanted me to fuck you, didn't you?" Stephen shut his eyes. "Briefly." Crane lowered his head so his mouth was right on Stephen's ear, voice vibrating, teeth and tongue touching the sensitive flesh. "When I fuck you, Mr. Day, it will not be briefly. It will be long and hard and extremely thorough. I'm going to take pains with you.

What I mean is, one can’t help one’s fears. The question isn’t if you’re a fellow who cries in the night before a big engagement—and I knew a damned brave man who did exactly that, regularly. It’s whether you pick yourself up the next day.

Right. Put Some coffee on while I think about this. I'm in dire need" Merrick gave him a look. "You can't work the stove, can you?" "I'm the eighth Earl Crane and the twelfth Viscount Fortunegate. I don't have to work the stove." "Two extra names and you can't lift your arms any more. Bloody lucky they didn't make you a duke too or you'd forget how to brush your own teeth.

When my namesake, the great Caesar, rode in triumph,” Julius said, “he was accompanied by a slave whose role was to whisper to him, You are but mortal. To remind him he was merely a man who would one day die like any other. If I could, I should have you at my side to remind me that I am alive, because I have not felt alive in so damned long, and with you, I do. No, I don’t want you to marry, any more than I want you to return to your dirty democrats. I want to show you the world, and see you smile, and keep you with me while my soul grows back.

I don't believe in demons and pitchforks. But I think, if you had to define hell, you could take a good man and deny him the rites he believed in, and condemn his soul to a slow process of corruption until it was nothing but a mass of rage and hate and seething evil that his true self would have loathed. I think that would be hell.

Charm's a very dangerous thing. Lucien, tell me," Stephen said thoughtfully. "This respect for shamans, this inviolability..." "Mmm?" "Well, I don't know if you remember, but some three weeks ago, you tied me to your bedposts and spent two hours subjecting me to acts of unimaginable depravity. And considering you call me a shaman--" "I take issue with 'unimaginable'," Crane interrupted, sudden heat and light rushing through him. "I imagine those acts in detail every night you're not there. In fact, I've imagined quite a few more that I have every intention of subjecting you to when I get a chance.

I’m well aware of my good fortune. I’m well aware I ought to be happy, we all ought to be happy as the day is long, and dance the night away on the bodies of starving workers. Well, I’m not bloody happy.” He knocked back his gin. It rasped down his throat like a rusty blade. Silas watched him as he tried not to cough it back up. “If you can’t be happy, then be something else. Be useful, that would be good. Decorative, if you like. Selfish, if you must. But don’t whine about it.

Being, in my own small way, a part of Authority, it never ceases to amaze me how much people believe in it and trust it. I see it from the inside, of course—inefficiencies, stupidities, corruption, bloody-minded ignorance and simple lack of resources to cope with the magnitude of the endless, ever-multiplying problems. But other people see it from the outside. They see the Land Walls. They see the emperor’s head on the coins, with Victory on the reverse. They see the temples. They see soldiers in shining armour. They see, and they believe, that the empire is big, strong, wise, unbeatable.

Art is the conscious making of numinous phenomena. Many objects are just objects - inert, merely utilitarian. Many events are inconsequential, too banal to add anything to our experience of life. This is unfortunate, as one cannot grow except by having one’s spirit greatly stirred; and the spirit cannot be greatly stirred by spiritless things. Much of our very life is dead. For primitive man, this was not so. He made his own possessions, and shaped and decorated them with the aim of making them not merely useful, but powerful. He tried to infuse his weapons with the nature of the tiger, his cooking pots with the life of growing things; and he succeeded. Appearance, material, history, context, rarity - perhaps rarity most of all - combine to create, magically, the quality of soul. But we modern demiurges are prolific copyists; we give few things souls of their own. Locomotives, with their close resemblance to beasts, may be the great exception; but in nearly all else with which today’s poor humans are filling the world, I see a quelling of the numinous, an ashening of the fire of life. We are making an inert world; we are building a cemetery. And on the tombs, to remind us of life, we lay wreaths of poetry and bouquets of painting. You expressed this very condition, when you said that art beautifies life. No longer integral, the numinous has become optional, a luxury - one of which you, my dear friend, are fond, however unconsciously. You adorn yourself with the same instincts as the primitive who puts a frightening mask of clay and feathers on his head, and you comport yourself in an uncommonly calculated way - as do I. We thus make numinous phenomena of ourselves. No mean trick - to make oneself a rarity, in this overpopulated age.