Quotes from book

Still Life with Woodpecker

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

“Often, moreover, it is… that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable, that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.”

“There are two kinds of people in this world : those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”

“Life is like a stew, you have to stir it frequently, or all the scum rises to the top.”

“We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”

“But do we know how to make love stay?'
I can't even think about it. The best I can do is play it day by day.”

“Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning.”

“They'd be no threat to me. I have a black belt in Haiku. And a black vest in the cleaners.”

“Bernard Mickey Wrangle had developed a psychological test of his own. It was short, simple, and infallible. To administer the test, merely ask the subject to name his or her favorite Beatle. If you are at all familiar with the distinct separate public images of the four Beatles, then you'll recognize that the one chosen reveals as much about the subject's personality as most of us will ever hope to know.”

“I'll never write another novel on an electric typewriter. I'd rather use a sharp stick and a little pile of dogshit.”

“On the campus of Outlaw College, professors of essential insanities would characterize the conflicting attitudes of Nina Jablonski and Leigh-Cheri as indicative of a general conflict between social idealism and romanticism. As any of the learned professors would explain, plied with sufficient tequila, no matter how fervently a romantic might support a movement, he or she eventually must withdraw from active participation in that movement because the group ethic — the supremacy of the organization over the individual — is an affront to intimacy. Intimacy is the principal source of the sugars with which this life is sweetened. It is absolutely vital to the essential insanities.”

“They snuggled closer, and when they were as close as they could get without being behind one another, they commenced to kiss again.”

“She tried out the chamber pot, although she really had nothing to contribute.”

“She lunched on papaya poo poo or mango mu mu or some other fruity foo foo bursting with overripe tropical vowels.”

“This baby (the Remington SL3 typewriter) speaks electric Shakespeare at the slightest provocation and will rap out a page and a half if you just look at it hard.”

“Her surname resembled a line from an optometrist's examination chart.”

“Hawaii made the mouth of her soul water.”

“Twenty candles on a cake. Twenty Camels in a pack. Twenty months in the federal pen. Twenty shots of tequila down a young girl's gullet. Twenty centuries since Our Lord's last pratfall, and after all that time we still don't know where passion goes when it goes.”

“This stuff's so fine Julius Caesar called for it with his dying breath. 'A toot, Brutus,' is what he said.”