45 Quotes by Jerry Stahl

In my family, misery didn’t just love company, it wanted hostages.

I always tell myself, when I remember the non-stop self-generated hell party that used to be my life, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t go there.

The art and act of writing – speaking just for myself – involves getting your proverbial ass in the proverbial chair.

At 17, all I wanted was to be a famous junky. Like all my heroes.

There was a weird intimacy, sitting in a car together. Couples sat in cars. Cops and their partners. Strangers became unstrange, sharing a windshield view of the world.

A waft of sweet hash drifted by, and I wanted to float after it like Wimpy levitating at the scent of a hamburger.

If you’re here for four more years or four more weeks, you’re here right now. I think when you’re somewhere, you ought to be there. It’s not about how long you stay in a place, it’s about what you do while you’re there, and when you go, is that place any better for your having been there?

Life can be lived as a temporary arrangement. Life is a temporary arrangement! But the longer you go without changing, the more obscure the likelihood you ever will. After enough time passes, the idea of another way of life grows even more misty.

This is, I believe, what happens when people take their own lives. They’re not killing themselves, they’re killing the world. Either to spare it pain or to cause it some, depending.