John Tottenham Quotes

Whenever I'm in a relationship I feel as if I'm being unfaithful to myself.

IMPROVIDENCE
The other lives I might have led
All now might as well be
Dead. Survived by no one.
Barren, without issue of any sort:
This withered bud, failed
In art and love. With no time left
To change my course. But time enough
for infinite remorse.

Life Without Work
To do nothing
In this day and age,
When so much pointless work
Is being produced,
Could almost be considered an achievement.
It all compares most unfavorably
With my own imaginary
Body of work.

I had a feeling once. I wonder what happened to it.

VIEW FROM A HILL
I am not yet quite over it.
I am lying down on top of it.
Surveying behind me a wasteland
Of dried-up promise.
While the lights below twinkle
With dull mocking uncertainty.
There isn't much left to look forward to,
And the looking forward of the past has been belied.

Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my life.

And what have I learned
from all these affairs of the heart?
One thing only, and that
what I knew to begin with:
that I have no business being in one at all.

Patronage of Negation
I am constantly confronted by other people's works
That I could have created myself.
And I am constantly disappointed by them.
Sadly, I have to recognize them
For what they are: inferior versions
Of what I could have done
If I'd been insecure enough in my abilities
To do anything.

My Sadness is Deeper than Yours

My sadness is deeper than yours. My interior life is richer than yours. I am more interesting than you. I don't care about anybody else's problems. They are not as serious as mine. Nobody knows the weight I carry, the trouble I've seen. There are worlds in my head that nobody has access to: fortunately for them, fortunately for me. I have seen things that you will never see, and I have feelings that you are incapable of feeling, that you would never allow yourself to feel, because you lack the capacity and the curiosity. Once you felt the hint of such a feeling, you would stamp it out. I am a martyr to futility and I don't expect to be shut down by a pretender. Mothballs are an aphrodisiac to me, beauty depresses me. You could never hope to fathom the depth of my feelings, deeper than death. I look down upon you all from my lofty height of lowliness. The fullness of your satisfaction lacks the cadaverous purity of my pain. Don't talk to me about failure. You don't know the meaning of the word. When it comes to failure, you're strictly an amateur. Bush league stuff. I'm ten times the failure you'll ever be. I have more to complain about than you, and regrets: more than a few, too many to mention. I am a fully-qualified failure, I have proven it over and over again. My credentials are impeccable, my resume flawless. I have worked hard to put myself in a position of unassailable wretchedness, and I demand to be respected for it. I expec

Everything's falling apart according to plan.