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And too much testosterone is what causes men to commit unspeakable crimes like murder and rape and The Rock and Bad Boys. –Jeanne Marie Laskas, “Michael Bay,” 2001
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The food in private houses tends to be in the shape of things–ice-cream boats or hearts, fish-shaped aspic salads–and almost everything is creamed, not only creamed but served with creamed sauce. –Jessica Mitford, “Whut They’re Thanking Down There,” 1962
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This and nothing else is the desperately sought and tragically fragile writer’s process: in his imagination, he sees made-up people doing things–sees clearly–and in the act of wondering what they will do next, he sees what they will do next, and all this he writes down in the best, most accurate words he can find, understanding even as he writes that he may have to find better words later, and that a change in the words may mean a sharpening or deepening of the vision, the fictive dream or vision becoming more and more lucid, until reality, by comparison, seems cold, tedious, and dead. –John Gardner, “Do You Have What It Takes to Become a Novelist?” 1983
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In the months after I got back from Vietnam, the hundreds of helicopters I’d flown in began to draw together until they formed a collective meta-chopper, and in my head it was the sexiest thing going; saver-destroyer, provider-waster, right hand-left hand, nimble, fluent, canny and human: hot steel, grease, jungle-saturated canvas webbing, sweat cooling and warming up again, cassette rock ‘n’ roll in one ear and door-gun fire in the other, fuel, heat, vitality, and death, death itself no intruder. –Michael Herr, “High on War,” 1977
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Also, I shouldn’t have to say this, but do not, under any circumstances, put Pop Rocks in your ass. –Stacey Grenrock Woods, Sex column, 2003
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And, yes, you’re married and, yes, maybe she is, too, but you are there, both of you, because you want to strip yourselves down to just this moment, this motel, this song, this bottle of wine, this bra strap, these panties over this chair, this light cutting through these curtains, this pillow, these deep sighs. –Anonymous, “The Indefensible Position: Adultery Is Good for Your Marriage,” 2001
I should probably read these essays in their entirety now.
Boy, that fag can box!
