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181 " Humans were always more capable of evil than you could imagine. And they were also capable of more wonderment than you could ever fathom. People had come up with this city. And what was different between them and her? They had hands and eyes. They had imaginations. They went to bed at night, and they had funny adventures in their heads. Anything was possible. But the effects "
― Heather O'Neill , The Lonely Hearts Hotel
182 " were passing by. Once I heard him making fun of Jules. Jules was walking down the street carrying a lamp in his hand that he’d obviously just pulled out of some garbage heap. “Look at the garbage picker man!” Alphonse said. “That motherfucker is sad. He tried to sell me a comforter once! I said get the hell away from me. He’s out all night looking for rags and bones. What year we living in, man? Get a real job, motherfucker.” Jules couldn’t stand Alphonse either. He said Alphonse was a pimp. I didn’t know what a pimp did exactly. I was almost certain that it meant he had prostitutes working for him, but I wasn’t sure. I told a kid at school that I knew a pimp and he said, “Bullshit. It’s not fucking possible. You’re making it up.” So I guessed I’d made a mistake. Or maybe the word “pimp” had two different meanings. I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING to make older guys want to treat me like I was one of them, "
― Heather O'Neill , Lullabies for Little Criminals
183 " You have to create thoughts from scratch, Piglet. And as for the ingredients, you need love, wisdom, terror and acceptance. You have to put all these emotions together in order for them to be big and bold and gigantic ideas that you can be proud of and truly call your own. These are the kinds of thoughts that are free and original and can change the world. "
― Heather O'Neill , The Girl Who Was Saturday Night
184 " What kind of bird do you think these feathers come from?' she asked.'I don't know. A swan?''You had better stop wearing those wings, then.A swan might fall in love with you. And as youprobably know, swans mate for life.''You are a funny one, Rose. "
185 " Every time that you read a book, it is like depositing money in the bank. You spend every weekend reading a pile of books this big, I swear to you that you are going to be a rich man. "
186 " She had no business being a housewife, really. She probably had a mind built for the world's leading criminal investigator. She could be out in the world tracking down society's most heinous criminals or cracking enemy codes. Instead she was stuck in the house, focusing all her intellectual acumen and perspicuity on piecing together exactly what her husbad had been up to that evening. "
187 " When he was a baby, he didn’t do much of anything at all. He wouldn’t even sit up but just lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. "
188 " That's the way I talked when I smoked pot. It was a gift. Every time I smoked up, these pretty phrases and ideas just popped into my head. Usually I went around with so many ugly insecure things flying around in my head that when a pretty thought came to me, it usually died a lonely death, afraid to come out. But when I was high, I simply had to utter it. "
189 " If you want to get a child to love you, then you should just go and hide in the closet for three or four hours. They get down on their knees and pray for you to return. That child will turn you into God. Lonely children probably wrote the Bible. "
190 " I find that I can't help being bad. I promise and promise and promise myself that I won't be a bad person. But then I just do something bad.''That's because we're girls. We're supposed to only have emotions. We aren't even allowed to have thoughts. And it's fine to feel sad and happy and mad and in love- but those are just moods. Emotions can't get anything done. An emotion is just a reaction. You don't only want to be having reactions in this lifetime. You need to be having actions too, thoughtful actions. "
191 " God knows who we became when we masturbated. It was like our desire was a spirit that possessed us and took over. "
192 " Felix was in his room singing into a tape recorder then playing it back and exclaiming, “My God. Do I actually sound like this? All this time I thought that I was a great singer, but I don’t have any talent whatsoever! "
193 " Jules always told me not to tell people your business, not to tell them your past. He said to keep them guessing. He said that once a person knew all there was to know about you, they’d take advantage of you. Trust nobody, he’d told me over and over. In a way, I’d kept his advice up until just then. I was stoned and felt like sharing all my shit with the whole world. I wanted to be taken advantage of. "
194 " Drug dealers wouldn’t want to have anything to do with these pathetic specimens. You had to be relaxed and professional to associate with drug dealers. "
195 " I didn’t know how he managed to keep the weight of his secret when the burden of it was crushing me. "
196 " I don’t know why I was upset about not being an adult. It was right around the corner. Becoming a child again is what is impossible. That’s what you have legitimate reason to be upset over. Childhood is the most valuable thing that’s taken away from you in life, if you think about it. "
197 " When I read, I was a philosopher and it was up to me to figure out the meaning of things. Reading made me feel as if I were the center of the universe. "
198 " Because they travelled together, they developed intimacy. This was something other orphans didn’t have. Intimacy makes you feel unique. Intimacy makes you feel as though you have been singled out, that someone in the world believes you have special qualities that nobody else has. "
199 " But having a young parent meant you had to pack up your stuff in an hour and run away from a twenty-two-year-old from Oshawa who was going to be mad at you for having sold his guitars. "
200 " The sky was the color of lightbulbs that weren’t lit. "