Cockroaches Quotes

I knew that cockroaches could go more than a month without food or water. And they could even survive on wood for food. And even after you step on them they come apart slowly and keep on walking all the while. Even when they freeze, after they thaw out they keep on going. For three hundred and fifty million years, they have reproduced with no change. When the world was practically naked, they walked slowly across it. ~ Clarice Lispector

It's like a cockroach working up a plan to defeat the shoe on its way down to crush it. ~ Rick Yancey

A quiet room with cockroaches peeping out like prunes from every corner ... ~ Nikolai Gogol

Teenagers are fast. They're like cockroaches that way. ~ Stephen King

At times, feeling the wind on my brow, I went numb with horror. In my imagination I saw armies of ants and cockroaches calling to one another and scurrying toward my head, to some place under the top of my skull, where they would build new nests. There they would proliferate and eat out my thoughts, one after another, until I would become as empty as the shell of a pumpkin from which all the fruit has been scraped out. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

He takes a deep breath, and opens the door. In my other life I used to know people like that
they're frightened by the sound of wind through the leaves, they can't bear cockroaches, not to mention policemen, lawyers, even dentists. And yet when the dragon bursts into the clearing, opens its mouth and spits fire, they stand up to them. Calm, cool as an angel. ~ Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Problems in a company are like cockroaches in the kitchen. You will never find just one ~ Warren Buffett

I think I've become more relaxed throughout my career. I don't feel the need to jump up and down and make a big noise to get people to pay attention to me. I don't need to do punk rock gestures or eat a cockroach or do something weird to say I exist. ~ Nicolas Cage

Cockroaches are survivors. Turn on the lights and you will see a scattering of casino hosts in three thousand dollar bespoken suits, corporate fruit flies in empty suits, lawyer-class slime on their way to the courthouse to go shopping for other people's money, bankers shilling bad loans by bundling them together with good ones and sending them down the financial pipeline knowing that they stand protected by the political scum from every level of government who have risen to breathtaking heights of mediocrity, tossing a couple of bucks from the public till to the obedient myrmidons in exchange for their votes. While decaying empire crumble, cockroaches multiply among the ruins. - Bonjour Amigos ~ David Gustafson

Got back and went to use the loo in Room 5 and was shocked at the state of it. Christian the producer was not well and had made a mess of it and the walls surrounding it. Even the cockroaches were running out the door. For the first time in my life I was aware that my face did a disgusted look. I decided I'd rather do it on the street than sit in there. ~ Karl Pilkington

Artists are like cockroaches; everything is grist for the mill. ~ Elaine De Kooning

Some secrets can't be kept too long. No matter how hard you try to hide them, sooner or later they scurry out from your cupboards, cockroaches on the run. ~ Ellen Hopkins

I reach under Mongo, and my hand lands on something squishy. I grab hold of it, and pull out an orange bunny Peep from a long ago Easter. Even I wouldn't eat it now. The scary thing is, it still looks perfectly fine. Dusty, but fine. I think Dr. Grady was wrong. At the end of the world will be bacteria, cockroaches, and Peeps. ~ Wendy Mass

By the time she had picked every visible corpse off her property, the heap included ants, beetles and cockroaches, different kinds of spiders, some bees, flies, a wasp, two fetid lizard skins and the brittle remains of their skeletons, six butterflies, a stick insect the length of her forearm, two dragonflies, a handful of crickets and other creatures that in the world of naming remained untitled. The collection measured a full hand deep. She paid no attention to the odour rising out of the bucket. The scent of decay was not offensive to her. It was the aroma of life refusing to end. It was the aroma of transformation. Such odour was proof that nothing truly ended, and she revelled in it as much as she did the cereus blossoms along the back wall of the house. ~ Shani Mootoo

I'm hostile to men, I'm hostile to women, I'm hostile to cats, to poor cockroaches, I'm afraid of horses. ~ Norman Mailer

A cockroach likely has no less brainpower than a butterfly, but we're quicker to deny it consciousness because it's a species we dislike. ~ Jeffrey Kluger

At the end of time, all that will be left is cockroaches and Texans. ~ Sharon Bayliss

The ceiling of languages is falling down. Either add to this rubble or shove at least some of it away.
Liberty, shit. The liberty to starve. The liberty to speak words to which no one listens. The liberty to get diseases no doctor treats or can cure. The liberty to live in conditions cockroaches wouldn't touch except to die in. The liberty to be an eighty-three-year-old Ukranian shuffling around in her slippers among the cat shit in the slum building hallway-'Is there a landlord here? Is there light anywhere? ~ Kathy Acker

The walls were chipped and needed paint. The windows were mostly okay but one pane was blocked with cardboard. There were fleas the exterminator couldn't kill and rats that scrabbled in the walls and mice who left droppings like a cocked snook and roaches that thrived on insecticide, even the illegal kinds. ~ John Brunner

Sexual predators were like cockroaches. For every one you saw, there were twenty more hiding behind the walls. ~ Karin Slaughter

Well the thing is, once you have a snow leopard it's difficult to go back. Everything is going to be slightly disappointing. It's very telling what your choice would be. Because that's probably how you see yourself. We used to play that game as kids and you'd say if you were animal what would you be and it'd usually be the opposite of what it should be. But all animals have got their virtues. You know, cockroaches got virtues. ~ Daniel Craig

When you got back to his apartment, the flamenco dancers were still stomping around in the restaurant upstairs. Moriarity pushed a bottle of cheap Sauterne and sliced salami across the kitchen table. A large cockroach fell from the top of the refrigerator and landed with a click on the scarred linoleum floor. You lifted both your feet and curled your toes. ~ Lorena Cassady

Like a lightning bug ... Like a lightning bug? ... Yes, just like a night lightning bug; because there are day lightning bugs too - even if nobody has ever seen one, I know there are some, and I know the day lightning bugs are the cockroaches that since they can't light up, people kill them. ~ Reinaldo Arenas

I'm convinced my cockroaches have military training, I set off a roach bomb - they diffused it. ~ Jay London

In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces - never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen. ~ Warren Buffett

Man must be able to think freely and he must be able to express his thoughts freely! He who is against this is not only fascist and primitive but at the same time is a very great coward also! Only the brave and the honourable men are never afraid of freedom of thought and freedom of expression of ideas! Just like the cockroaches do not like the light, evil minds also do not like the freedom of thoughts! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Here's the thing: We have plenty of time. These are cockroaches and we want to kill them all. They're just absolute pieces of garbage and we will get them. So why don't we try the air campaign first? ~ Eric Bolling

Software bugs are like cockroaches; there are probably dozens hiding in difficult to reach places for every one you find and fix. ~ Donald G. Firesmith

As every cockroach knows, thriving on poisons is the secret of success. ~ Mason Cooley

Kitchens always attract bugs because there are odors and crumbs. Even if you're clean as can be, bugs will be in your kitchen at some point whether they are ants, beetles, or even cockroaches. ~ Patty Korman

You cannot disgrace a disgraceful man; you cannot make a shameless man feel ashamed; you cannot make a cockroach a cockroach, because it is already a cockroach! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Cockroaches were a problem, too, and to me the people who invented Combat, the little black roach-trapping contraption, are urban folk heroes. ~ Kim Gordon

I am informed that 5,000 cockroaches were used in the filming of Joe's Apartment. That depresses me, but not as much as the news that none of them were harmed during the production. ~ Roger Ebert

My apartment is infested with koala bears. It's the cutest infestation ever. Way better than cockroaches. When I turn on the light a bunch of koala bears scatter. But I don't want 'em to, you know, I'm like "Hey, hold on, fellas. Let me hold one of you. And feed you a leaf." ~ Mitch Hedberg

God, Quinn, you have no idea how permanent I'd like this to be. I'd like us to be Twinkies and cockroaches, death and taxes. ~ Penny Reid

There mostly is rats an' mice in attics. You gets used to the noise they makes scuttling about. I've got so I don't mind 'em s' long as they don't run over my piller."
"Ugh!" said Sara.
"You gets used to anythin' after a bit," said Becky. "You have to, miss, if you're born a scullery maid. I'd rather have rats than cockroaches."
"So would I," said Sara; "I suppose you might make friends with a rat in time, but I don't believe I should like to make friends with a cockroach. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Americans have a lower opinion of Congress than they do of the NFL replacement refs, head lice, traffic jams, cockroaches and even the group to which yours truly belongs - Washington political pundits. ~ Juan Williams

I rarely do anything on the show by myself. I dont want it to be about me. Squatting in the sewer in San Francisco, its really hot, were up to our knees in a river of crap. Rats and cockroaches are all over. I would never, ever walk into that environment, except for the fact that the guy who does it every day is squatting next to me. ~ Mike Rowe

You want to meet your gods, you filthy cockroaches? Tell the evil sods that Molly Templar says hello when you see them. ~ Stephen Hunt

In the end, there is cruelty and death alone over the land. Not in a single ray of light or grain of sand will you find solace, for all is dark, and the cold gaze of God's indifferent, heavy-lidded eyes falls on all with equal disdain. Only in your inner strength is there salvation; you must live just as a tree must live, or the cockroaches and fleas that flourish in the land and ruin of Earth. And so you live, and feel the sting of knowing you live. You eat whatever comes to hand, and if what you eat was once a brother or sister, so be it; God does not care. Nobody cares. You whore, and if you whore with man or woman, nobody cares; for when all are hungry, all are whores, even those who use the whores. And disease flourishes when all are whores, for germs must live, and spread across the land and ruin of Earth. ~ Greg Bear

Cockroaches, Ari. Humans are like cockroaches." Crag nodded his head, his eyes twinkling. ~ Beverly Ovalle

When it comes down to it, the reason that science fiction endures is that it is, at its core, an optimistic genre. What it says at the end of the day is that there is a tomorrow, we do go on, we don't extinguish ourselves and leave the planet to the cockroaches. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

She looked at me with gentle indignation. She was what we have after sixty million years of the Cenozoic. There were a lot of random starts and dead ends. Those big plated pea-brain lizards didn't make it. Sharks, scorpions and cockroaches, as living fossils, are lasting pretty well. Savagery, venom and guile are good survival quotients. This forked female mammal didn't seem to have enough tools. One night in the swamps would kill her. Yet behind all that fragility was a marvelous toughness. A Junior Allen was less evolved. He was a skull-cracker, two steps away from the cave. They were at the two ends of our bell curve, with all the rest of us lumped in the middle. If the trend is still supposed to be up, she was of the kind we should breed, accepting sensitivity as a strength rather than a weakness. But there is too much Junior Allen seed around. ~ John D. MacDonald

Sometimes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are presented as a hunting expeditions ("As British close in on Basra, Iraqis scurry away"; "Terror hunt snares twenty-five"; and "Net closes around Bin Laden") with enemy bases as animal nests ("Pakistanis give up on lair of Osama"; "Terror nest in Fallujah is attacked") from which the prey must be driven out ("Why Bin Laden is so difficult to smoke out"; "America's new dilemma: how to smoke Bin Laden out from caves"). We need to trap the animal ("Trap may net Taliban chief"; "FBI terror sting nets mosque leaders") and lock it in a cage ("Even locked in a cage, Saddam poses serious danger"). Sometimes the enemy is a ravening predator ("Chained beast - shackled Saddam dragged to court"), or a monster ("The terrorism monster"; "Of monsters and Muslims"), while at other times he is a pesky rodent ("Americans cleared out rat's nest in Afghanistan"; "Hussein's rat hole"), a venomous snake ("The viper awaits"; "Former Arab power is 'poisonous snake'"), an insect ("Iraqi forces find 'hornet's nest' in Fallujah"; "Operation desert pest"; "Terrorists, like rats and cockroaches, skulk in the dark"), or even a disease organism ("Al Qaeda mutating like a virus"; "Only Muslim leaders can remove spreading cancer of Islamic terrorism"). In any case, they reproduce at an alarming rate ("Iraq breeding suicide killers"; "Continent a breeding ground for radical Islam"). ~ David Livingstone Smith

All of us have secrets in our lives. We're keepers or keptfrom, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches - that's what will be left at the end of it all. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches? ~ Henry Ward Beecher

I try to catch flies in cups and put them outside. After I wrote 'The Underland Chronicles' ... well, once you start naming cockroaches, you lose your edge. ~ Suzanne Collins

The fact that someone lived inside this mess really goes to to say something about the resilience of humans. You're basically cockroaches. Good job. ~ Donovan Scherer

She was in a coma, and had been unresponsive for years. Every Tuesday I'd visit her and read to her, and as I'd leave I'd always say, "I love you," as I'd kiss her on her forehead.

One day as I was leaving, I said my normal I love you and kissed her, when her eyes popped open, she looked directly into my eyes, smiled, and then she said, "Spaghetti for brains albino idea weasel."

And that was when I stabbed her with a piece of garlic toast. It seemed like the most appropriate response. The police didn't seem to agree, and I could tell by the way they bagged the evidence in a To Go box that they thought I was the lowest of the low, lower perhaps than even a politician.

Well, not quite that low, but certainly with the cockroaches, vultures, and aids-infested vampires. ~ Jarod Kintz

Just as I prepared to stand and bow, a woman appeared with a miniature coffee cup in her hand.
She offered it to me.
As I took it, I noticed two things:
Bugs crawling on the ground and the men approving of me by snapping their fingers.
I bowed and took a sip of the coffee and almost fainted.
I had a cockroach on my tongue.
I looked at the peoples' faces and I could not spit it out.
My grandmother would have pushed away the grave's dirt and traveled by willpower to show me her face of abject disappointment.
I could not bear that.
I opened my throat and drank the cup dry.
I counted four cockroaches. ~ Maya Angelou

I have been
used something fierce in my time but
i am no bum sport archy
i am a free spirit archy i
look on myself as being
quite a romantic character oh the
queens i have been and the
swell feeds i have ate
a cockroach which you are
and a poet which you used to be
archy couldn t understand
my feelings at having come
down to this i have
had bids to elegant feeds where poets
and cockroaches would
neither one be mentioned without a
laugh archy i have had
adventures but i
have never been an adventuress ~ Don Marquis

I owned a 1972 Plymouth Valiant that we bought for $125. It was infested with cockroaches and geckos - it was its own little ecosystem. ~ Aaron Eckhart

Can you see the beauty in a cockroach? ~ Wayne Dyer

Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, these cockroaches were sadomasochists, looking for the most painful way to die. Once I swallowed one absent-mindedly drinking my tea. Traumatised, I rang the local chemist. The voice on the line was gently reassuring: cockroaches were not poisonous, ingesting one would cause me no harm. Though, the chemist added, in terms of protein they were not as nutritious as snails. ~ Xiaolu Guo

If the cockroaches survive and we don't, what does that say about human intelligence? ~ Marty Rubin

Corporations were society's cockroaches: they always survived. ~ Tom DeLonge

That year the Ribeiro's daffodils seeded early and they seeded cockroaches. Now, ecologically speaking, even a cockroach has its place
but these suckers bit. That didn't sound Earth-authentic to me. Not that I care, mind you, all I ask is useful. I wasn't betting on that either. ~ Janet Kagan

Now lend me your ears. Here is Creative Writing 101:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things - reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I've found that wherever there is one cockroach in plain sight, many more are lurking behind the corner out of view. ~ Harry Markopolos

Boxing the Jesuit?" Stephan nudged Grey with an elbow, and raised thick blond brows in puzzlement. "Cockroaches? What does this mean, please?"

"Ahhh…" Having no notion of the German equivalent of this expression, Grey resorted to a briefly graphic gesture with one hand, looking over his shoulder to be sure that none of the women was watching.

"Oh!" Von Namtzen looked mildly startled, but then grinned widely. "I see, yes, very good! ~ Diana Gabaldon

In Europe we felt that our enemies, horrible and deadly as they were, were still people.
...
But out here I soon gathered that the Japanese were looked upon as something subhuman and repulsive; the way some people feel about cockroaches or mice. ~ Ernie Pyle

Apparently, moving back home was just like joining Facebook, when middle-aged boyfriends came crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches, suggesting drinks, putting out their nasty feelers for potential affairs. ~ Liane Moriarty

Without birds to feed on them, the insects would multiply catastrophically ... The insects, not man or other proud species, are really the only ones fitted for survival in the nuclear age ... The cockroach, a venerable and hardy species, will take over the habitats of the foolish humans, and compete only with other insects or bacteria. ~ H. Bentley Glass

I live in New York, and the only live animals you see are cockroaches, rats and pigeons, which I admire immensely. When I see an animal that thrives in the garbage, I feel relief; in our urban environment, other animals are dying out. ~ Isabella Rossellini

It's funny. I thought she'd live through anything."
Charlie said, "Me too. I figured even if there was a nuclear war, it would still leave radioactive cockroaches and your mum. ~ Neil Gaiman

I used to hit the kitchen lights, cockroaches everywhere/Hit the kitchen lights, now it's marble floors everywhere. ~ Young Jeezy

Violence is never the answer but sometimes, like with cockroaches, it is the only possible response. ~ Tanya Huff

Dan was doing his best Ian Kabra impersonation, looking around the store as though inspecting it for cockroaches. Amy tried to turn her snort of laughter into a cough.
"Espresso?" The saleswoman materialized seemingly out of nowhere. Amy realized that the full-length mirror on the wall was actually a door.
If she were Amy Cahill, she would blush and shake her head no, just because she didn't want to cause any bother. She imagined what Natalie Kabra would do.
"Tea. Darjeeling," she said in a curt tone.
"Oh, not Darjeeling, sis," Dan said. "That's just so middle class."
"Lapsang souchong?" the saleswoman asked.
"I just adored his last collection," Dan said.
The woman's tight smile dimmed. "That's a tea. ~ Jude Watson

Lies are like cockroaches, for every one you discover there are many more that are hidden. ~ Gary Hopkins

There are really only two things I'm terrified of: water and cockroaches. ~ Leslie Hope

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, and rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to bodyguards, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere. ~ Joseph Heller

There are three things in this world that will survive a nuclear explosion: Twinkies, cockroaches and Dean Ambroses. ~ Dean Ambrose

Armoires are the cockroaches of our culture." And ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Misconceptions are like cockroaches: you have no idea where they came from, but they're everywhere - often where you don't expect them - and they're impervious to nuclear weapons. ~ Alex Reinhart

We lived in Yorkville, which is located on the East End of Manhattan. It's further east than Hell's Kitchen, and back then it was the kind of place where the roaches and cockroaches were big enough to carry away small children. ~ Bob Cousy

The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it
cockroaches as large as peach leaves
fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they stuck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. ~ Mark Twain

Even a cockroach can be legendary by being killed by a legend. ~ Munia Khan

Harry looked at Bellman. He could not help but admire him. The way you admire a cockroach you flush down the toilet and it comes creeping back again and again and in the end it inherits the world. ~ Jo Nesbo

The sound of someone passing by the library entrance made the two of them scatter away, like cockroaches from the light. ~ A.Z. Green

I'm horrified of lobsters. And shrimp and lobsters are the cockroaches of the ocean. ~ Brooke Burke

It is a natural stronghold for them - they can infest this maze of iron and water like a horde of starving cockroaches, and they'll be just as hard to anticipate and to kill in such close quarters."
"Wow," Shane said. "You really know how to drum up team spirit. Did you print up Team Total Fail jerseys, too?" Myrnin gave him an entirely crazy smile. "Would you be surprised if I had? ~ Rachel Caine

Someone once said "The only thing that will be left after a nuclear holocaust is Cher and cockroaches." I think that's funny, because, you know, I am a survivor. If I am anything, that's what I am. ~ Cher

Elephants have a hard time adapting. Cockroaches outlive everything. ~ Peter Drucker

A gazelle runs faster than us; cockroaches are remarkably tolerant of radiation; every being has some superiority; in remembering this, be very humble! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

You don't live in luxury! You are relegated to sleep in the little store room behind the kitchen with the cockroaches and rats and are at the mercy of Mrs. Gupta,' Reena was indignant. 'It's five-star accommodation compared to a mud hut. ~ Renita D'Silva

She was always making silly mistakes when it came to preparing her son's food - mistakes that anybody could have made, really. Like sprinkling chilli powder instead of cinnamon into his birthday cake batter every year, or accidentally spreading crushed cockroaches instead of tuna onto his tuna sandwiches. ~ Tiffany Tsao

I am a survivor. I am like a cockroach, you just can't get rid of me. ~ Madonna Ciccone

People die', she says. 'People tear down houses. But furniture, fine, beautiful furniture, it just goes on and on, surviving everything.' She says, 'Armoires are the cockroaches of our culture. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I jump out of planes, I could be covered in cockroaches, I do all sorts of things, but I just don't like the feel of butterflies' bodies. ~ Nicole Kidman

Raven, lying on the sandy ground, covered in creepy-crawlies. Spiders, cockroaches, termites, ants, crickets - they smother her, nibble on her, devouring her from hair to toenails in seconds, leaving just a skeleton behind. Apple, standing at the podium on Legacy Day. Poof, she disappears. And reappears in a goblin cave. The goblin troop moves in, brandishing salad bowls and chopping knives. Daring Charming, no story to call home, thins and melts into a wisp of a ghost, swimming endlessly through walls. The crowded Charmitorium at Ever After High, Headmaster Grimm on the stage. "And remember, students, no matter what you do, don't follow the example of the worst, most despised, most selfish character in all of Ever After history - Raven Queen!" "Boo!" the students yell. "Boo!" says the Daring ghost. Apple's head in a goblin bowl opens her eyes and looks straight at Raven. "Boo! ~ Shannon Hale

That little punk," Zeus grumbled. "Prometheus armed the cockroaches." Next to him, the goddess Hera said, "Uh, what?" "Nothing," Zeus muttered. He yelled to his guards: "Find Prometheus and get him in here. NOW! ~ Rick Riordan

There is nothing so despicable as a secret society that is based upon religious prejudice and that will attempt to defeat a man because of his religious beliefs. Such a society is like a cockroach - it thrives in the dark. So do those who combine for such an end. ~ William Howard Taft

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. ~ Franz Kafka

In my early teens, I heard about Naked Lunch and its mutating typewriters and talking cockroaches. While I would hardly classify its dystopic vision as erotica now, at the time, Naked Lunch was my first foray into consuming smut. It was because of Burroughs that I knew about the particular musk that blooms when a rectum is penetrated, and that death-by-hanging produces spontaneous trouser tents. The first Burroughs I read was Naked Lunch, but I buried myself in a few of his stories, and thus the arc of my recollection is just as non-linear as his narrative. ~ Peter Dube

Art has been hijacked by nonartists. It's been taken over by bookkeeping. The whole thing is so corrupt. But I suppose that's okay. For artists, everything is grist for the mill. Artists are like cockroaches; we can't be stamped out. ~ Elaine De Kooning

The psychologist, Paul Rozin, an expert on disgust, observed that a single cockroach will completely wreck the appeal of a bowl of cherries, but a cherry will do nothing at all for a bowl of cockroaches. ~ Daniel Kahneman

We've never had a giant circulation. And we've always been a magazine for writers and for sophisticated readers. We've never had to run stories that would appeal to a million people. And what you end up with is a kind of tradition that might have staying power - the cockroach after armageddon. ~ Lorin Stein

And suddenly they came out of the woodwork. I don't actually know what that expression means. What come out of the wood work? Cockroaches maybe. Mice? Are these rhetorical questions, like I just learned about on one of my rare visits to school? Was that a rhetorical question? Is it a paradox when you ask rhetorically if a rhetorical question is a rhetorical question? I think I'd better stop before I get a headache. ~ John Marsden

But for Soraya, words on a page were seductive, free, inviting everyone, without distinction. She could not help it when she found words written down, taking them in, following them as if they were moving and she was in a trance, tagging along. A book was something to hide, the thick enchantment of it, the shame, almost. When everyone was asleep, she would creep indoors, into stifling, badly lit rooms, with cockroaches clicking, to open a book at a page she had marked and step into its pulsating pool of words. ~ Leila Aboulela