102 Quotes by Poppy Z. Brite

My grandmother told me you shouldn’t try to define evil, that the minute you think you’ve got it all pinned down, a kind of evil you never even thought of will sneak up behind you and jump inside your head. I don’t think anyone knows what evil is. I don’t think anyone has the right to say.

I certainly wanted to write a book that was honest about New Orleans without explaining it to death, so much so that the first draft contained references absolutely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t lived here for several years.

I’ve certainly learned a great deal from my husband, though, and could never have written a book like Liquor without him and the people he introduces me to and the stories he brings home.

My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery – which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove.

If you’re a freelance writer and aren’t used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.

Atheists loved to use that term to describe some shadowy force that somehow controlled human destiny, but what the hell did they think the universe was? Did they think the stars and nebulae took an interest in their doings, and if they really meant God, why couldn’t they just say so?

It was as if America had begun the decade of the eighties by shattering some great cosmic mirror, except that the seven years of bad luck hadn’t ended yet. The wizened, evil-faced dybbuk in the White House had been as alien a being as Trevor could imagine, a shriveled yet hideously animated puppet thrust into power by the same shadowy forces that had controlled the world since Trevor was five, forces he could not control, could barely see or begin to understand.

I’d say to myself, Andrew Compton, you’ve sucked their cold mouths and cocks; you’ve licked their blood from your hands by the bucketful; you’ve boiled the flesh off their skulls, then used the same pot to make curry. Why not just fry up a few tender bits and see what it’s like – perhaps with a nice egg?

Help the ones you love, his grandmother had told him, help them when you can, and after that, mind your business. Your gift doesn’t give you the right to go rearranging other people’s lives for them. You might see their souls, but they won’t always want you to be their mirror.