No one can win against kipple, except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment I’ve sort of created a stasis between the pressure of kipple and nonkipple, for the time being. But eventually I’ll die or go away, and then the kipple will take over. It’s a universal principal operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving towards a final state of total, absolute kippleization.
– J. R. Isidore, from ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ by Philip K. Dick, 1968
You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.
– Wilbur Mercer, from ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ by Philip K. Dick, 1968
History is the fuel from which we imagine future histories we are trying to make.
– Laine Nooney, ‘Factually podcast, Episode 220: How Computers Took Over Our Lives’ 2023
Jeremy popped his eyes like a dog in mid poop.
– from ‘Smoked Out’ by Jeff Carson, 2015
Ahh, you know when two dogs start sniffing each others butts and everyone just stops and watches it happen?
– from ‘Smoked Out’ by Jeff Carson, 2015
With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience into the color of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned in words, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.
– from ‘Blindness’ by José Saramago, 1995
Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that cannot bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.
– from ‘Blindness’ by José Saramago, 1995
What I’m really scared of is believing the words society makes me speak are my own.
– from ‘Earthlings’ by Sayaka Murata, 2018
So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing. The specific form of what is considered an ordinary person had been there all along, unchanged since prehistoric times I finally realized.
– from ‘Convenience Store Woman’ by Sayaka Murata, 2016
Some people put out fires, others start them, and the rest watch blissfully from the perimeter with flames dancing in their eyes. That’s the power of the match. Struck against the side of a box, balanced between two fingers, given the right fuel, it can raze a house or fell a forest. Rome burned. So did Dresden. Holly’s world burned that night.
– from ‘The Wreckage’ by Michael Robotham, 2011
For some reason, I’ve never trusted a man who has no useful pockets. What does he do with his hands?
– from ‘Shatter’ by Michael Robotham, 2008
That is the most wonderful sentence I have ever heard. I want that on my gravestone. Snuffleupagus was real. No more. Just that.
– from ‘The Fireman’ by Joe Hill, 2016
There’s something horribly unfair about dying in the middle of a good story, before you have a chance to see how it all comes out. Of course, I suppose everyone always dies in the middle of a good story, in a sense. Your own story. Or the story of your grandchildren. Death is a raw deal for narrative junkies.
– from ‘The Fireman’ by Joe Hill, 2016
You know, we might’ve fucked up the planet, sucking out all the oil, melting the ice caps, allowing ska music to flourish, but we made Coca-Cola, so goddamn it, people weren’t all bad.
– from ‘The Fireman’ by Joe Hill, 2016
Someone probably a lot smarter than me said hell is other people. I say you’re in hell when you don’t give to someone who needs, because you can’t bear to have less. What you are giving away then is your own soul.
– from ‘The Fireman’ by Joe Hill, 2016