Hubert Selby citations

“Eventually we all have to accept full and total responsibility for our actions, everything we have done, and have not done.”

“The voice so filled with nostalgia that you could almost see the memories floating through the blue smoke, memories not only of music and joy and youth, but perhaps, of dreams. They listened to the music, each hearing it in his own way, feeling relaxed and a part of the music, a part of each other, and almost a part of the world.”

“There's a sorrow and pain in everyone's life, but every now and then there's a ray of light that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort like hot soup and a soft bed.”

“For weeks Tyrone thought he was going to die any minute, and there were also times when he was afraid he wasnt going to die.”

“Sometimes we have the absolute certainty there's something inside us that's so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won't be able to stand looking at it. But it's when we're willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel.”

“I sit, I read, I listen to music, I go or a walk, I ride to Prospect Park and sit under the Willow Tree, I remember, I forget, I look at pictures, I do, I do, I do… or I don't, but its peaceful… only me… no worries.”

“I guess I had fun. But not enough to stay.”

“But you cant shut everyone out. I mean you have to have someone to love… someone to hold on to… someone”

“I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn it's passing.”

“… and the night was comfortably warm as the soft filtered light continued to push the darkness into the shadows as they held each other and kissed and pushed each others darkness into the corner, believing in each others light, each others dream.”

“Life was not longer something to endure, but to live.”

“He didnt know what was defeating him, but he sensed it was something he could not cope with, something that was far beyond his power to control or even at this point in time comprehend.”

“But to believe that getting stuff is the purpose and aim of life is madness.”

“Sometimes it seems to stand still. Like you’re in a bag and you can’t get out and somebody’s always telling you that it will get better with time and time just seems to stand still and laugh at you and your pain.”

“All the energy of their frustration and fear going into their laughter.”

“They held each other and kissed and pushed each others' darkness into the corner, believing in each others' light, each others' dream.”

“Everything about it was wrong. Thats why it worked so good.”

“I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer.”

“… I started to die 36 hours before I was born, so dying was a way of life for me.”

“thats why you cant be worried about the world. theyll just do you in anyway. you can't depend on them because sooner or later theyll turn on you or just disapear and leave you there alone.”

“However they may have felt when they left they were now committed, they had passed the point of no return.”

“He replaced the gray of the walls with a darker shade by closing his eyes. It felt good to shut out some of the light. Not all, but just some. Just enough so there was a gray without images or threatening corners. Not the blackness that gives birth to those sudden flashes of stinging light that slashes your eyes, or the velvety darkness that thickens and become animated and flows and somehow moves around and over you. Just a soothing gray. Nothing to see.”

“A little sleep and then a little wakefulness. Then a slipping to some soothing place in between.”

“And the goddamn subway reeked like a sewer. All those goddamn animals jammed into the train like the ark... yeah, thats what they are, a bunch of stinking animals.”

“Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting.”

“A dark yet shallow sleep. A submission to exhaustion. A loss of consciousness and an avoidance of light, Yet not deep enough to avoid the turbulence on the surface while deep enough to feel the pressure from the bottom. Whatever or whoever he was sought to find the finite area where all pressures are equal and constant. To find that small pocket of weightlessness where no pressure is felt, where there is no tugging in opposite directions, no straining for a painless balance, where all of him was suspended and cushioned between the 2 crushing and yanking pressures where no pressures existed. Where no light existed. Where no time existed. Where no need or desire existed. Where there existed no blackness. There, where there existed nothing, not even a void.”

“There was a sense of security in old, familiar feelings in spite of their discomfort.”

“He fought despairingly to go deeper into the blackness of a sleep, any sleep, even the sleep of death or some form of non-existence, but even with the loss of consciousness he dreamt he was awake, lying on the bed trying desperately to sleep. If he could find some way to prove that time had passed, no matter how short that time, he could tell himself that he had slept and perhaps then, just perhaps, he would feel rested.”

“They had all they needed. They had the madness of pain.”