Alexander Maksik Quotes

Cowards spend their lives alone. Either with people who can't hurt them, or with no one at all.

Time passes, her mother said, peeling carrots. No matter what you do. No matter what happens, she said, crushing garlic, hammering the side of her favorite knife with her fist. Beauty or horror, my heart. Turning on the stove. Beauty or horror, it passes.

Find some people you give a shit about. Who care about you. Who are smarter than you are. Find a woman. Who laughs at you. Who'll kick your ass out of the house. You find that woman and she's the same woman who'll throw herself in front of a truck for you? Well, then you're somewhere.

We the erratic keep terrible time.

Now I sat at the small table in my apartment. There was the hum of the room. The sound of the blade cutting through the chicken. The sound of wine in my throat. Returning the glass to the table. I tried to be perfectly still. I held my breath and imagined myself alone in Paris. In a room in a city holding my breath.

But one day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.

Everything can change, but only with abandon.

This was the advantage of desire. Desire focused the mind. It eliminated extraneous thought. The greater the desire, the less the burden of the mind. She would like to live her life this way. Perhaps it was how to survive intact. Live to satisfy her desires. Desire only what she could have.

And it was the speed that provided some solace. For if it moved like that, it would always move like that, and somehow, because of it, things change, somehow things end.