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1 " Still, I know how to use the little I have, my flat stomach and rather flatter chest, my slightly bowed, but strong and flexible legs. I produce plenty of phlegm. I have clever hands and a stare that could take the silvering off a mirror. Men flatter themselves they are original in admiring me. How confused they are when they find out they have competition. (There is no desperation like that of a lover who has decided to do you a favor, and finds himself waiting in line.) "
― Shelley Jackson
2 " I patch together a living language out of reanimated parts, like Frankenstein, and feel no disgust at scrabbling in the charnel house. Each of us makes her own monster, who earns a cozy co-tenancy of our tomb. We’re all the last native speakers of a language that dies with us. Am I so special for tasting the rot on my tongue? For knowing whose remains I’m kitted out in? "
― Shelley Jackson , Half Life
3 " There is nothing so bracing as planning a murder. I recommend it to the weak-willed and those with a leaky sense of self. It is fortifying as a drop of coagulant in a solution. I had planned (The word is too strong. Imagined. Anticipated?) this particular murder for so many years that it had taken on an air of performance and respectability. To understand how a murder can be domesticated and even humdrum may be hard for fans of the pounce of the soundtrack, the streak of scarlet, the gunky skeleton jiggling in the flashlight beam. But I am convinced that if murder is horrible, its for the overflow into the ordinary: severed heads in Ziploc bags, the dead baby in the dumpster behind Chubby’s. Anyone who has eaten a pork chop has all the information she needs for murder…It takes a special kind of person, a criminal, to commit a crime? You know better; in your dreams you’ve already tried it… "
4 " Not that pain is the worst thing in the universe. Interesting things happen when you adapt pain for your own. This thing you were prepared to spend your life flinching from is suddenly just another piece of information. "
― Shelley Jackson , The Melancholy of Anatomy
5 " Cut nerves left lying on the threshing floors drift and roll and wind up all aligned with the earth's magnetic field, like iron filings swayed by a magnet in a classroom experiment. "
6 " Scar tissue does more than flaunt its strength by chronicling the assaults it has withstood. Scar tissue is new growth. And it is tougher than skin innocent of the blade. "
7 " I began to invent something new: a way to hang together without pretending I was whole "
8 " It is a terrible thing when it is the substitute that is sent to find a new life, a sign that a person yearns for change but cannot imagine creating it herself....If scapegoats feel pain, it is only the delegated pain of their originals. "
9 " Nobody can remember when the sperm became large enough to see, but we agree on this: once that point was reached, every generation topped the last. They went from guppy to goldfish, and before long they could frighten a schnauzer, and not much later even Great Danes made way for them....Sperm are ancient creatures, single-minded as coelacanths. They are drawn to the sun, the moon, and dots and disks of all descriptions, including periods, stop signs, and stars. They worship at nail heads, doorknobs and tennis balls. More than one life has been saved by a penny tossed in the air. "
10 " Language is a terrible, cold thing, I think. One may recount an event, calmly selecting the most suitable words, that to remember without benefit of ink is almost beyond bearing. We accept the counterfeit and are thankful, for it spares us the awful weight of our lives. "
― Shelley Jackson , Riddance: Or the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children
11 " Ведь что такое "я"? Куриная косточка, застрявшая в горле. На письме я могла стать кем угодно.Потому что заикание, как и писательство – любительская форма некромантии.Ибо этот физический закон действует в обе стороны: чтобы прозвучала речь, нужно время; чтобы запустить время, нужна речь.Что если смерть – всего лишь пауза, позволяющая лучше присмотреться к миру?Смерть – тихая гавань, прочный сук, на который садится воробей, цветущий луг для жука и влажная земля для червя, а для кита – глубины, куда не достанет гарпун.Истиной считается то, с чем почти все согласны; нам кажется, что раз большинство подтверждают что-то, это и есть истина. "
