Pryor Quotes

The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit.

You can't talk about fucking in America, people say you're dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that's cool.

Everyone carries around his own monsters.---Richard Pryor

What I'm saying might be profane, but it's also profound.

As it stands right now, I lead Richard Pryor in heart attacks, two to one. However, Richard still leads me, one to nothing, in burning yourself up.

But thoughts don't care about truth and shit. They sit up in your mind and fuck with you whenever.

  The she-wolf visibly recoiled. “You speak with the dead? Then you are truly the one spoken of who has come to save us.” She stood immediately and gave a shrill howl to her pack, all the wolves in the glade sitting up with ears pricked. “I give you Two-heads,” called the she-wolf, “the shaman our elders foretold, he comes to save us from the predations of the men from the sky...

Strong isn't about not being afraid, Caitlin. It's about facing what you're scared of.

I’m more than twisted. I’m the worst kind of vampire… But you’re the one who’s craving me, so what does that make you?

I believe the ability to think is blessed. If you can think about a situation, you can deal with it. The big struggle is to keep your head clear enough to think.

I should tell you that we are awakening all of the Canidae, not merely your own species. You must tell me if that is unwelcome.” Hell, thought Monty, shivering. All the Canidae. Wolves I can take, but foxes, jackals, dingoes, and…and…and…all those others. “Is that a problem?” The voice was full of concern.

If peace had a smell,it would be the smell of a library full of old, leather-bound books.

You breathe too fast to be convincing,' he goaded. 'You don't breathe enough to judge me.

  Which nose do I touch, wondered Garth, ‘and do I really want to touch any of those vile snouts?’ He studied the skeins of drool that hung from the dog’s jaws and felt himself shudder. But surely this would be a small price to pay to win the preferment of this powerful beast. Garth decided that touching one nose would be sufficient and took a step forward.

I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, "I wanna grow up and be a critic.

The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bull shit.

You can only fight what you are for so long. Eventually the hand that nature has dealt you will make you become what you were meant to be. You have no control over it.

Do you know how you felt when you would lean all the way back in a chair, and just before you were about to tip over, at the very last second, you'd catch yourself ? That's how I feel all the time.

Kane narrowed his eyes. ‘Where have you been all this time, Caitlin?’ She could see the suspicion in his eyes, the accusation. ‘Tied to a radiator.’ ‘What is it about you that makes people want to cuff you, huh?

You see, if I stop thinking about what I’m scenting on the air or in the undergrowth, if I cease wondering which path to tread or where we’re going and instead let myself meld into the space in my head, it’s as if I am living in what the humans called a library, the place where all knowledge is stored.

Playing the martyr doesn’t suit you, Leila.’ ‘Maybe not, but playing the complete and utter bastard clearly suits you.

Who you gonna believe, bitch? Me? or your lying eyes?

He craned his neck and sniffed at the puffball. “It is a dog,” he confirmed. “Hey! Come on, time to go,” he barked at the animal, foraging in its woolly thicket of fur and finding a leg to pull. “How dare you!” squealed a thin voice. “How dare you insult the great, the magnificent, the incomparable Pom.

That’s exactly the trouble with cockapoos,” observed Monty. “They aren’t natural. They’ve been synthesised, an unnatural splicing of breeds to meet human requirements. Every wolf gene cut out. I can’t stand ’em, ingratiating little buggers, they’ve got the please disease.

Ho-ho,” called one of the Labradors, as the pair were spied, “strangers. Not come to steal our balls have you?” he threw loudly at Loki. “Only you look a bit beagleish to me, and beagles have a reputation for thieving balls. “I’ll have your balls, mate,” replied Loki. “Disrespecting the beagle family. Only I see the vet has beaten me to it.

Oh,” answered the vet, “I’m Francis, or—” He rapped his knuckle against his temple. “Perhaps I should say Frances.” “You just did,” said Shaggy, who’d already been wondering if there was something wrong with this human, he had dark lines around his eyes that looked as though they had been painted on, and his lips were a bright shade of pink.

We die, you die. You die, we survive. I think there’s a pecking order in that, don’t you?

The answer to your first question is simple. The human race had become too dangerous. We are aware that the means for interstellar flight have been developed here on Earth, almost to the point of application. But we cannot allow this bellicose and destructive species to infect space beyond your own star system...

I will not be threatened. Do you understand me?’ He leaned closer again, his lips less than a couple of inches from hers. ‘Now try saying it without trembling.

What are you most scared of, Caitlin? What I can do to you, or how I make you feel?

Last warning. I don't play nice.

You need me, Kane. Maybe even more than I need you.

Crosses only scare vampires away because they're allergic to bullshit.

Down on the beach the three children stood unmoving in the late afternoon gloaming, their arms linking them together, watching transfixed while the tall grey man approached them with a steady step. He carried a long pole with what at that distance resembled an old-fashioned lantern at its tip. As he drew close to the trio the lamp brightened, enveloping them in its glow. Then suddenly and silently the light was extinguished, leaving only the grey man standing motionless on the sand.

I'm already inside your head. And your body's most definitely next.

You’re a conceited bastard, aren’t you?’ ‘Decades of practice.

Well,” sighed Toby, “I’m not really much of a hunter. Retrievers retrieve things, you know, things other folk have hunted. Other than that I’m a lovely boy, that’s what my human said, and I do enjoy being lovely.” Garth cringed and, to change the subject said, “There’s a rabbit now. It’s sitting up sniffing the air and not picking up our scent. Could you catch it, do you think?” “Oh, look at him,” chuckled Toby. “what a sweet little chap.

Aubrey Fitzwilliam hated being dead. It made things much harder than they needed to be.

All who cross the bridge into our domain must bring good cheer and entertainment. It all begins with a nose-to-nose and ends with a compelling story. In return, we will offer replenishment. That is our custom... There is no option to refuse,” added the GSD. With his nose, he indicated the side of the bridge. “It’s a long way down.” As Garth drew himself up in indignation the GSD roared with laughter, as did several of his compatriots. “Just my bit of fun,” he chortled. “We don’t see many strangers around here. I couldn’t resist it.

I think you’re so busy reading between the lines, you’re missing the sentence on the page.

You upped the ante with the wrong vampire, Caitlin.

There's only so much temptation a vampire can take.

I see people as the nucleus of a great idea that hasn't come to be yet.

I can be a little prickly when people make assumptions about women.

Fear is the enemy of learning. It’s the negator of joy, the preventer of play, the inhibitor of trust and love. Fear just gets in the way, slows things down, and causes unnecessary pain.

The rarity of what you hold is more powerful than you can imagine. It is a gift for humanity and the most lethal curse to the vampires.

I’m not punishing you.’ ‘No?’ ‘No. You’d know if I was. Trust me.

*kiss*

This first part may be a little rough.' He waved a hand and did his best to appear as if he'd had enormous experience with levitating buildings.

...that aversives stop behavior, they don’t start it; and that fear and pain produce completely unpredictable and usually highly undesirable side effects, including being both exciting and reinforcing to the punisher. (p.15)

I took that mint because I wanted to. I wanted to remember who I was. I wanted to remember my family. Most of all, I wanted to remember you. I wanted to remember what we are together, and how we got to that point. I wanted you to know I remember all of those precious moments. And if I don’t make it through this, I wanted to go knowing I love you. I wanted you to know I remember why I love you.

One reason punishment doesn't usually work is that it does not coincide with the undesirable behavior; it occurs afterward, and sometimes, as in courts of law, long afterward. The subject therefore may not connect the punishment to his or her previous deeds; animals never do, and people often fail to. If a finger fell off every time someone stole something, or if cars burst into flames when they were parked illegally, I expect stolen property and parking tickets would be nearly nonexistent.

the less people knew, the louder they got.

This was about getting inside her body, then her mind, before unlocking the chastity belt that was her heart, to steal the soul inside.

If peace had a smell, he thought, it would be the smell of a library full of old, leather-bound books.

Countless emotions could be masked by the sexual act, but a kiss, the most intimate and passionate of exchanges, concealed nothing.

it’s not our mistakes that define us, but what we do about them.

I don’t do this relationship shit, Caitlin. But I see you because I want to see you; I’m with you because I want to be with you. That’s the truth.

And now here we are," he said. "Both knowing what you are, both knowing what I am. And that, my little fledgling sacrifice, must make me your worst fucking nightmare.

One bite, Caleb, that’s all it will take.’ ‘Once more inside you could be all it takes,’ he whispered in her ear, making her stomach flip. ‘Right now, I’m willing to take the risk. Are you?

She exhaled curtly. ‘I’m a serryn. That’s all you see. I’m just something to be tortured, slain or sold off as a commodity. That’s hardly the most appealing of traits.’ ‘Tell your eyes that. Because you really shouldn’t look at me the way you do. No serryn has looked at me like that.

If only the choice of whom you fall for were that easy. None of us choose who we love, Jask. If it were about reason and logic and choice, it would be science, not emotion. It would stop being magic.

There should be a Stage IV of black identity—Unmitigated Blackness. I’m not sure what Unmitigated Blackness is, but whatever it is, it doesn’t sell. On the surface Unmitigated Blackness is a seeming unwillingness to succeed. It’s Donald Goines, Chester Himes, Abbey Lincoln, Marcus Garvey, Alfre Woodard, and the serious black actor. It’s Tiparillos, chitterlings, and a night in jail. It’s the crossover dribble and wearing house shoes outside. It’s “whereas” and “things of that nature.” It’s our beautiful hands and our fucked-up feet. Unmitigated Blackness is simply not giving a fuck. Clarence Cooper, Charlie Parker, Richard Pryor, Maya Deren, Sun Ra, Mizoguchi, Frida Kahlo, black-and-white Godard, Céline, Gong Li, David Hammons, Björk, and the Wu-Tang Clan in any of their hooded permutations. Unmitigated Blackness is essays passing for fiction. It’s the realization that there are no absolutes, except when there are. It’s the acceptance of contradiction not being a sin and a crime but a human frailty like split ends and libertarianism. Unmitigated Blackness is coming to the realization that as fucked up and meaningless as it all is, sometimes it’s the nihilism that makes life worth living. Sitting

Training is a loop, a two-way communication in which an event at one end of the loop changes events at the other, exactly like a cybernetic feedback system; yet many psychologists treat their work as something they do to a subject, not with the subject.

she had only been able to imagine what Kane was like. And she realised just how limited her imagination had been as he consumed every inch of her, thrusting into her with such controlled force that every part of her ached.

Shadow-reading was hard enough but attraction to the subject caused all sorts of problems, not least blocks. But having stared deep into those lethal navy eyes, having felt the potential of his cool hard body against hers, those sensuous lips against her neck and wrist, heard the caress of his whispers, she knew her job had only got harder.

She hated him in that moment and she adored him. If she’d had any regrets, they’d gone.

it was nothing about feelings. It was sexual – pure and simple.

People who have outrageous skills and abilities are the gold nuggets in the river bed of human history.

There is no right or wrong or good or evil indicative to either species – just the reasoning behind the choices each of us makes.

When it comes to love, time is nothing more than a socially induced marker of validity. When you simply know, time becomes irrelevant.

Nobody should be allowed to have a baby until they have first been required to train a chicken

Rain meant hoods up, umbrellas up, deficiency of sound, lowered eyes. Rain disorientated and distracted people, making the kill or capture so much easier.

You’re my addiction, Caitlin, keeping me sane at the same time as driving me crazy.

Vampires might bite, honey, but lycans tear.

There comes a point in some conversations where I simply quit and let reality do my talking for me.

I couldn't help wondering where porpoises had learned this game of running on the bows of ships. Porpoises have been swimming in the oceans for seven to ten million years, but they've had human ships to play with for only the last few thousand. Yet nearly all porpoises, in every ocean, catch rides for fun from passing ships; and they were doing it on the bows of Greek triremes and prehistoric Tahitian canoes, as soon as those seacraft appeared. What did they do for fun before ships were invented? Ken Norris made a field observation one day that suggests the answer. He saw a humpback whale hurrying along the coast of the island of Hawaii, unavoidably making a wave in front of itself; playing in that bow wave was a flock of bottlenose porpoises. The whale didn't seem to be enjoying it much: Ken said it looked like a horse being bothered by flies around its head; however, there was nothing much the whale could do about it, and the porpoises were having a fun time.

And one day,’ he said, ‘I’ll be able to offer you more than back-alley dives and tunnel floors. I’ll be able to give you what you deserve.’ ‘I don’t care where I am as long as I’m with you, Eden.

You’re a cold bastard, Caleb.’ She turned on her heels, fighting back the tears as she took the first two steps back down. ‘A cold bastard who feels a hell of a lot more than he should,’ he declared. ‘Who, despite what you have done to me here, still cannot see you walk away. Who cannot bear the thought of anyone else laying their hands on you. Who I would kill if they ever hurt you the way I have. I don’t want you to be a serryn, Leila. It’s the last thing I want. And you being the one I need to kill tears me apart more than you’ll ever know.

As he [Sir Malcolm Sargeant, conductor of the London Philharmonic] stood in waist deep in the shallows of Whaler's Cove, the littler spinners came drifting over, sleek and dainty, gazing at him curiously with their soft dark eyes. Malcolm was a tactful, graceful man in his movements, and so the spinners were not afraid of him. In moments, he had them all pressing around him, swimming into his arms, and begging him to swim away with them. He looked up, suffused with delight, and remarked to me, 'It's like finding out there really are fairies at the bottom of the garden!

I roamed L.A. by night. I got repeatedly rousted by LAPD. I sensed that a cop-street fool compact existed. I behaved accordingly. I denied all criminal intent. I acted respectfully. My height-to-weight ratio and unhygienic appearance caused some cops to taunt me. I sparred back. Street schtick often ensued. I mimicked jailhouse jigs like some WASP Richard Pryor. Rousts turned into streetside yukfests. They played like Jack Webb unhinged. I started to dig the LAPD. I started to grok cop humor. I couldn't quite peg it as performance art. I hadn't read Joseph Wambaugh yet.

In stand-up, you do need to be having fun up there like Richard Pryor said, but you have to know yourself well, too. You have to know when you make different faces, or do different things, you get certain reactions. You start learning and it’s like playing a piano. You just know exactly what keys to stroke, ’cause really with comedy, you’re like fiddling with people’s souls. You resonate on the same frequency as them, trying to get them to relate.

As with clicker-trained animals, deliberate use of intimidation almost certainly moves your learner off the SEEKING circuit and onto the conditioned fear path in the amygdala. You may get compliance, but learning slows way down.

At least I'm trying to understand you. But your mind is already made up. The truth is you want me to be like the others. You need me to be like them. You can't handle the fact that I'm different. I think that says more about you than me.

Parish, get back into position!’ Max warned. ‘Do not go in there. I repeat, do not go in there.’ ‘We lose him now, we lose him for good,’ Caitlin declared. ‘And I am not going to let that happen.’ ‘You have insufficient backup. I repeat: insufficient backup.

This was war: a vast machine that chewed up people.

If he touches me, I’ll kill him.’ ‘If he touches you, I’ll kill him,’ he said, gazing deep into her eyes.

For all the alcoholics and addicts out there, you are loved, stopped being so stubborn and come in from the cold. Wherever you are, there is a brighter light in your sight. Move towards it every day, and keep moving towards it. Even the worst and strongest addiction is a choice—a choice not to fight, to give up, to indulge the impulse, or instead to accept the hands offered you to help, even from strangers, even from the state. Don’t hate those who gave up on you, it wasn’t their fault, you just wore them down. Show them they were wrong about you. Your troubles are meant to mold you into something better, not destroy you, so FIGHT! Another day comes for the better if you’re standing in the right spot for it to hit you. Find the right spot and stay there until it does.

The animal has discovered, in me, a new resource, like a new water hole or berry patch. Thus it takes a new and intense interest in what I do. That opens up huge opportunities for understanding. (p.13)

In Pryor, I saw someone channel what I call minor feelings: the racialized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one’s perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed. Minor feelings arise, for instance, upon hearing a slight, knowing it’s racial, and being told, Oh, that’s all in your head.

When the crowd is with you, the jokes are fresh, your timing is just right, and the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars. You are exactly where you should be, and there is nothing better. Comedy is a rare gift from the gods, an awesome invention. It propels you right into the heart of the universe. No wonder all the great comedians had such destructive private lives. Lenny Bruce had to shoot up, Richard Pryor had to freebase. Sam Kinison was just as abusive towards himself as he was to the crowd. After you get the audience into that kind of frenzy, and you are being worshiped like the false idol you are, how do you leave the stage and transition back into real life? How can you just come down? How can you ease back into mortality? What will you do for an encore? What is there left to do but set yourself on fire?

When you stop relying on aversive controls such as threats, intimidation, and punishment, and when you know how to use reinforcement to get not just the same but better results, your perception of the world undergoes a shift. You don’t have to become a wimp. You don’t have to give up being in charge. You lose nothing of yourself. You just see things you didn’t see before.

I’ve found that there’s no real comfort in success. There’s never time to slow down, sit back, and relax. But there did come a moment later in my career when I knew that I had truly made it as a comedian. After I presented Richard Pryor with the lifetime achievement award at the American Comedy Awards, we were backstage posing for pictures. He looked up at me and said, “I stole your album.” For a split second, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The great Richard Pryor stealing my material? I was honored and stunned at the same time. “In Peoria, I went into the record store and I put it under my jacket and I walked out,” he continued. “Richard, I get a quarter royalty on every album.” With that, Richard Pryor pulled out a quarter and handed it to me. To have your album stolen by Richard Pryor is quite an achievement.

The porpoises and whale themselves, in their quests for entertainment, often created problems. One summer a fashion developed in the training tanks (I think Keiki started it) for leaning out over the tank wall and seeing how far you could balance without falling out. Several animals might be teetering on the tank edge at one time, and sometimes one or another did fall out. Nothing much happened to them, except maybe a cut or a scrape from the gravel around the tanks; but of course we had to run and pick them up and put them back in. Not a serious problem, if the animal that fell out was small, but if it was a 400-pound adult bottlenose, you had to find four strong people to get him back, and when it happened over and over again, the people got cross. We feared too, that some animal would fall out at night or when no one was around and dry out, overheat, and die. We yelled at the porpoises, and rushed over and pushed them back in when we saw them teetering, but that just seemed to add to the enjoyment of what I'm sure the porpoises thoguht of as a hilariously funny game. Fortunately they eventually tired of it by themselves.

The historical truth is a fiction. OK, I did whatever I could to find out what happened from surviving friends, family and media, but that is simply a skeleton upon which the story is draped. This is the unmasking of the myth, and, as Jean Cocteau put it: “Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.” I wanted to go beyond a recreation of the past to discover meaning in the degradation of my addiction experience. The past is another country and not my prime interest. It’s more what the past can tell us about how we deal with the present moment. - William Pryor

Then, that memorably powerful look into my eyes told me something more: compared to dogs, wolves are grown-ups. He was not asking for help, head down, forehead wrinkled, as a dog might: “Is this right? What do you want?” Instead, head high, gaze level, he was assessing me, like a poker player: “Are you in or out?” Judging that I was in, he made his move; and we both won. (p.6)

George grinned. 'A pity you're perfectly dreadful at shooting.' Aubrey shrugged. 'I've had all the lessons. I'm adequate.' 'Adequate? I suppose it depends on what you mean. If you mean that you haven't actually shot yourself by accident, then by all means describe yourself as adequate.' George laced his fingers together and placed them on his chest. ''I'll come, then I might be able to spare you some embarrassment.' 'I'm honoured.

What you said about me hesitating going in to the party, it wasn’t solely nerves that stopped me – it was the last place I wanted to be. I had a pile of paperwork on my desk all about you. Since five o’clock that morning I’d been reading report after report, and I couldn’t get you out of my head. Even as I got dressed to go out, I was thinking of you. Even when I was buying this dress, I wondered what you’d think if you saw me in it. Although it was three years away, I was already counting down the months I had left until that thing came from me. When I called that taxi to take me home, I thought about telling it to take me to the border of Blackthorn instead. I thought about walking into one of the clubs where I knew you hung around, a club just like this one. And my choice was nothing to do with the soul ripper; it was nothing to do with catching you – it was about me. It was about what I wanted. And I wanted you. I’ve always wanted you.

A week later Mrs. Blythe, coming up from the village late in the afternoon, paused at the gate of Ingleside in an amazement which temporarily bereft her of the power of motion. An extraordinary sight met her eyes. Round the end of the kitchen burst Mr. Pryor, running as stout, pompous Mr. Pryor had not run in years, with terror imprinted on every lineament—a terror quite justifiable, for behind him, like an avenging fate, came Susan, with a huge, smoking iron pot grasped in her hands, and an expression in her eye that boded ill to the object of her indignation, if she should overtake him. Pursuer and pursued tore across the lawn. Mr. Pryor reached the gate a few feet ahead of Susan, wrenched it open, and fled down the road, without a glance at the transfixed lady of Ingleside. "Susan," gasped Anne. Susan halted in her mad career, set down her pot, and shook her fist after Mr. Pryor, who had not ceased to run, evidently believing that Susan was still full cry after him. "Susan, what does this mean?" demanded Anne, a little severely. "You may well ask that, Mrs. Dr. dear," Susan replied wrathfully. "I have not been so upset in years. That—that—that pacifist has actually had the audacity to come up here and, in my own kitchen, to ask me to marry him. HIM!" Anne choked back a laugh. "But—Susan!

I read a heap of books to prepare to write my own. Valuable works about art crime include The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick, Master Thieves by Stephen Kurkjian, The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser, Possession by Erin Thompson, Crimes of the Art World by Thomas D. Bazley, Stealing Rembrandts by Anthony M. Amore and Tom Mashberg, Crime and the Art Market by Riah Pryor, The Art Stealers by Milton Esterow, Rogues in the Gallery by Hugh McLeave, Art Crime by John E. Conklin, The Art Crisis by Bonnie Burnham, Museum of the Missing by Simon Houpt, The History of Loot and Stolen Art from Antiquity Until the Present Day by Ivan Lindsay, Vanished Smile by R. A. Scotti, Priceless by Robert K. Wittman with John Shiffman, and Hot Art by Joshua Knelman. Books on aesthetic theory that were most helpful to me include The Power of Images by David Freedberg, Art as Experience by John Dewey, The Aesthetic Brain by Anjan Chatterjee, Pictures & Tears by James Elkins, Experiencing Art by Arthur P. Shimamura, How Art Works by Ellen Winner, The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton, and Collecting: An Unruly Passion by Werner Muensterberger. Other fascinating art-related reads include So Much Longing in So Little Space by Karl Ove Knausgaard, What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy, History of Beauty edited by Umberto Eco, On Ugliness also edited by Umberto Eco, A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar, Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong, Art by Clive Bell, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke, Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton, The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, and Intentions by Oscar Wilde—which includes the essay “The Critic as Artist,” written in 1891, from which this book’s epigraph was lifted.