9 Quotes by George Alec Effinger

The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.

The two women looked at me as if I were the Messiah returning with their personal salvations sealed in separate envelopes.

I don't carry a weapon, Mr. Bogatyrev. Not usually. I've never been in a situation where I needed one. Either the other guy has one, and I do what he says, or he doesn't, and I make him do what I say.

If I have to go into that good night, I'm goin' gentle; the hell with whoever said not to. That sucker's dead, man, so what did he know? Not even the courage of his convictions.

It was a good thing I wasn’t afraid, because I was scared stiff.

Drugs are your friends, treat them with respect. You wouldn’t throw your friends in the garbage. You wouldn’t flush your friends down the toilet. If that’s the way you treat your friends or your drugs, you don’t deserve to have either. Give them to me. Drugs are wonderful things. I won’t listen to anybody trying to get me to give them up. I’d rather give up food and drink – in fact, on occasion, I have.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked awful, but I always look awful in the mirror. I keep myself going with the firm belief that my real face is much better looking.

You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can’t do it. It’s not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven’t you ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it’s reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent.

I closed my eyes and wished I believed in something enough to pray to it.