Hubert Selby Jr Quotes

An extraordinary writer ... It is the vastness of Nick Tosches' heart that makes it possible to reveal the darkness. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Thats why you cant be worried about the world. theyll just do you in anyway. you can't depend on them because sooner or later theyll turn on you or just disapear and leave you there alone. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Being an artist doesn't take much. Just everything you got. Which means of course that as the process is giving you life, it is also bringing you closer to death. But it's no big deal. They are one in the same and cannot be avoided or denied. So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it completely, I transcend all this gibberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

It makes tomorrow alright. ~ Hubert Selby Jr.

I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn it's passing. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

The voice so filled with nostalgia that you could almost see the memories floating through the blue smoke, memories not only of music and joy and youth, but perhaps, of dreams. They listened to the music, each hearing it in his own way, feeling relaxed and a part of the music, a part of each other, and almost a part of the world. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

It/ll be better tomorrow... ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you've got to tell a bigger truth in whatever you're doing, but the truth is not popular. ~ Lydia Lunch

I guess it could be said that the inspiration for 'Requiem for a Dream' is watching the American dream not only destroy so many lives in the U.S., but infect the rest of the world with its obsession with getting more, ignoring the deadly effect that has on the planet. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

He looked down at the street, and the unbroken whiteness, and watched his foot touch the snow and listened to the slight crunching sound as he stepped forward. He looked back at his footprints. They were fascinating. He had been the only one to walk along this street today. There wasn't even the mark of a dog or squirrel, or the scratch of a bird. He continued through the soft, silent snow, a feeling of peace starting to flow through him, helping make his step lighter and easier. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I've always felt alienated. I realized that I've been terrified my entire life. So I can identify that fear which drives so many of the people that I write about. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

When you write about the people you hate the most, do it with love. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Music brought the war in Vietnam right into our bedrooms. Songs we heard from America made us interested in politics; they were history lessons in a palatable, exciting form. We demonstrated against the Vietnam and Korean wars, discussed sexual liberation, censorship and pornography and read books by Timothy Leary, Hubert Selby Jr (Last Exit to Brooklyn) and Marshall McLuhan because we'd heard all these people referred to in songs or interviews with musicians. [...] Music, politics, literature, art all crossed over and fed into each other. There were some great magazines around too [...] Even though we couldn't afford to travel, we felt connected to other countries because ideas and events from those places reached us through music and magazines. ~ Viv Albertine

Usually the space was dotted with people getting high, getting higher, or wondering why they werent high yet. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Why did you start to write?


I left at 15.. I started to write becase I was taken off a ship from Germany when I was 18. They said I wouldn't live for 6 months.

I'd been given up for dead many times and I just didn't want to waste my life. I had what I now realize was a spiritual experience.

I realized that I would die,
and that just before I would die,
two things would happen.

number one, I would regret my entire life.
and number two, I would want to live my life over again.
and then I would die.
and that terrified me.

[...]

to think that I would live my entire life, look at it, and say oh..I blew it. was such a terrifying thought
that I bought a typewriter

I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I bought a typewriter.
but that is what got me to start writing, was

I did not want to waste my life

I wanted to, and I HAD to, do something with my life ~ Hubert Selby Jr.

I guess we're kindred souls and that's why we can feel so close to each other. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

They luxuriated in the feeling of deep and all pervading satisfaction, a feeling of knowing absolutely that all was well with the world and them and that the world was not only their oyster it was also their linguine with clam sauce. Not only were all things possible, but all things were theirs. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

But you cant shut everyone out. I mean you have to have someone to love ... someone to hold on to ... someone
~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

And the night was comfortably warm as the soft filtered light continued to push the darkness into the shadows as they held each other and kissed and pushed each others darkness into the corner, believing in each others light, each others dream. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

It was a nice night. A pleasant evening. There seemed to be stars somewhere and it was easy to avoid stepping in the garbage and dog shit on the streets. A truly beautiful night. Tony ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

And he just sat back and stared at the tube, almost interested in what was happening, trying to find the ability to believe in that lie so he could believe the one within. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

It's always the same
you get used to one thing, then it changes. Get used to another, and that changes. Over and over. Always the same.
O well, the hell with it. It's not important anyway. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

There are a lot of people in this country who really like my writing. And a lot of writers respect me. But the so-called establishment? They hate me. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

There's a sorrow and pain in everyone's life, but every now and then there's a ray of light that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort like hot soup and a soft bed. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I think the function of suffering is to let me know that my perception is skewed; what I'm doing is judging natural events in such a way that I am creating suffering within myself. For instance, you have pain over certain conditions, certain situations that occur. And if you just say 'ok, here I am, I'm going to experience the pain,' you don't suffer. The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

My writing is inspired by just about everything, yet I am unaware of so much of the process. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

All the energy of their frustration and fear going into their laughter. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Marion fought back the urge to shove the candle in his face and did her best to broaden her smile... ~ Hubert Selby Jr.

The thing is, all my heroes were junkies. Lenny Bruce, Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Miles Davis, Hubert Selby, Jr ... These guys were cool. They were committed. They would not have been caught dead doing an ALF episode. ~ Jerry Stahl

I need more than the streets. I don't want to be a floating crap game all my life. I want to be something ... anything. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

The natives knew better than to screw around with Tarzan. He was one bad dude. Lions, rhinos, just him and his knife. Great penthouse and elevator. Wouldnt last long in Brooklyn. Busted for indecent exposure. Me Tarzan you Judge. That is absolutely correct, and you are going to do sixty days. Try dressing as Beau Brummel the next time. Next case! ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

This book is dedicated, with love, to Bobby, who has found the only pound of pure- Faith in a Loving God. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

The responsibility of the artist is to transcend the human ego. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Writing, like any art, is a continuing process of discovering the infinite possibilities of Life. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

But to believe that getting stuff is the purpose and aim of life is madness. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I have rituals for cleaning out resentments, disappointments, heartbreak, depression and for work. One of the things I do is go over old stuff if I have been unable to write for a while. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Bodies need poison. Withdrawals without it. Toxin-free airs a killer. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Georgette was a hip queer. She (he) didn't try to disguise or conceal it with marriage and mans talk, satisfying her homosexuality with the keeping of a secret scrapbook of pictures of favorite male actors or athletes or by supervising activities of young boys or visiting turkish baths or mens locker rooms, leering sidely while seeking protection behind a carefully guarded guise of virility (fearing that moment at a cocktail party or in a bar when this front may start crumbling from alcohol and be completely disintegrated with an attempted kiss or groping of an attractive young man and being repelled with a punch and - rotten fairy - followed with hysteria and incoherent apologies and excuses and running from the room) but, took a pride in being a homosexual by feeling intellectually and esthetically superior to those (especially women) who weren't gay (look at all the great artists who were fairies!); and with the wearing of womens panties, lipstick, eye makeup (this including occasionally gold and silver - stardust - on the lids),long marcelled hair, manicured and polished fingernails, the wearing of womens clothes complete with a padded bra, high heels and wig (one of her biggest thrills was going to BOP CITY dressed as a tall stately blond ( she was 6'4 in heels) in the company of a negro (he was a big beautiful black bastard and when he floated in all the cats in the place jumped and the squares bugged. We were at crazy pad before going and were blasting like crazy, and ~ Hubert Selby Jr.

It seems to me that we all have a dream of our own, our own personal vision, our own individual way of giving, but for many reasons we are afraid to pursue it, or to even recognize and accept its existence. But to deny our vision is to sell our soul. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Sometimes we have the absolute certainty there's something inside us that's so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won't be able to stand looking at it. But it's when we're willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Its hopeless. Thats why you cant be worried about the world. Theyll just do you in anyway. You cant depend on them because sooner or later theyll turn on you or just disappear and leave you there alone. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

All the books I liked were basically about the same topic. White Niggers by Ingvar Ambjørnsen, Beatles and Lead by Lars Saabye Christensen, Jack by Alf Lundell, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr., Novel with Cocaine by M. Agayev, Colossus by Finn Alnaes, Lasso Round the Moon by Agnar Mykle, The History of Bestiality trilogy by Jens Bjørneboe, Gentlemen by Klas Östergren, Icarus by Axel Jensen, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Humlehjertene by Ola Bauer and Post Office by Charles Bukowski.

Books about young men who struggled to fit into society, who wanted more from life than routines, more from life than a family, in short, young men who hated middle-class values and sought freedom. They travelled, they got drunk, they read and they dreamed about their life's Great Passion or writing the Great Novel.

Everything they wanted I wanted too. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Most of the time when I have met artists who have meant a lot to me, the experience has been well above expectation. People like Iggy, Lou Reed, Jerry Lee Lewis, Black Sabbath, Nick Cave, Hubert Selby Jr, Billy Gibbons, Al Pacino, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, Johnny Cash etc. have been really great to me. What strikes me is most of the time, the bigger the celeb/legend, the more polite and cool they are. It's the insecure ones who treat you like they're doing you a favor by shaking your hand. ~ Henry Rollins

Everything about it was wrong. Thats why it worked so good. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I was sitting at home and had a profound experience. I experienced, in all of my Being, that someday I was going to die, and it wouldn't be like it had been happening, almost dying but somehow staying alive, but I would just die! And two things would happen right before I died: I would regret my entire life; I would want to live it over again. This terrified me. The thought that I would live my entire life, look at it and realize I blew it forced me to do something with my life. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

For weeks Tyrone thought he was going to die any minute, and there were also times when he was afraid he wasnt going to die. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I have joined an ancient fraternity. I have killed a man. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

The bodies went back in the doors and bars and the heads in the windows. The cops drove away and Freddy and the guys went back into the Greeks and the street was quiet, just the sound of a tug and an occasional car; and even the blood couldn't be seen from a few feet away. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

He looked at the houses he had been passing these weeks and though he had never studied them carefully they had become familiar through the process of seeing them so often, and he was now impressed with the change in their appearance as he looked at them through the gray of the air and whiteness of the snow, each house, shrub, tree, bush and mailbox trimmed with snow and blending into the air as if they were just a picture projected upon the still, pearly grayness, just an impression created by the silent snow, a picture on the edge and verge of disappearing and leaving only the air and snow through which he now lightly walked.
It did not seem possible, but the air was even softer and quieter. He continued walking alongside his prints feeling he could walk forever, that as long as the silent snow continued falling he could continue walking, and as he did he would leave behind all worries and cares, all horrors of the past and future. There would be nothing to bother him or torture his mind and fill his body with tremors of fear, the dark night of the soul over. There would only be himself and the soft, silent snow; and each flake, in its own life, its own separate and distinct entity, would bring with it its own joy, and he would easily partake of that joy as he continued walking, the gentle, silent snow falling ever so quietly, ever so joyously ... yes, and ever so love-ing-ly ... loveing-ly.... ~ Hubert Selby Jr.

There was a problem and that was that. Why didnt make a fiddlers fuck. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

He didnt know what was defeating him, but he sensed it was something he could not cope with, something that was far beyond his power to control or even at this point in time comprehend. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

Life was not longer something to endure, but to live. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

The sooner our society admits that the Negro Revolution is no momentary outburst soon to subside into placid passivity, the easier the future will be for us all. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The man that lays his hand upon a woman, Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch Whom't were gross flattery to name a coward. ~ John M. Tobin, Jr.

In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dinosaur Jr. in their live capacity are a band that put me in a state of such overwhelming rock that it often takes quite a while to come down. ~ Henry Rollins

History is but the polemics of the victor. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

We don't ask any people to throw away any good they have got; we only ask them to come and get more. What if all the world should embrace this Gospel? They would then see eye to eye, and the blessings of God would be poured out upon the people, which is the desire of my whole soul. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

You name it and I've done it. I'd like to say I did it my way. But that line, I'm afraid, belongs to someone else. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

More has been screwed up on the battlefield and misunderstood in the Pentagon because of a lack of understanding of the English language than any other single factor. ~ John W. Vessey, Jr.

I'm a painter in my dreams, you know. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Passing in any crowd are secret people whose hidden response to beauty is the desire to tear it into bleeding meat. ~ James Tiptree Jr.

I think I already proved that I wasn't just fighting for the money, because I fought as an amateur. I fought 90 fights for free. ~ Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

The pride in strength and important mystery showed no less in the eyes of the sweepers than in those of the machinists and inspectors, and in those of the foreman, who alone was without a lunchbox. A ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

If you don't meet the standards, then you don't qualify. ~ Harold Ford, Jr.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sports were a big part of my life. I was the captain of the basketball team in high school, and captain of the basketball team at Princeton. ~ John W. Rogers, Jr.

Any place you compromise in principle you will execute in performance. ~ Johnnie Dent Jr.

Martin Luther King (Jr.) during the civil rights movement used to exclaim that he looked forward to heaven where he would be "Free at last." That is the inscription on his tomb in Atlanta. ~ Billy Graham

Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The rising cult of ethnicity was a symptom of decreasing confidence in the American future. ~ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

It was a hideous discovery for the stranger to make - that a man at the end of his days was capable of inflicting pain as the rawest, loudest youth. With so little time left, the stranger added one more item to his long, long list of regrets. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

What do we want for people? Human dignity, personal expression and fulfillment, justice, freedom. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Chryseis was in another wing in the back of the house and would not be aware of our presence. I hadn't taken much notice of the house on my previous visit, but I now realized it was quite large, and built on the Roman model. ~ Albert A. Bell Jr.

To some extent, people who are insane are nonconformists, and society and their family wish they would live what appear to be useful lives. ~ John Forbes Nash, Jr.

Complaint is a cancer to wealth. But gratitude is an amplifier of wealth. ~ Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

White Americans must be made to understand the basic motives underlying Negro demonstrations. Many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations are boiling inside the Negro, and he must release them. It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people's pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

After the Stonewall riots the gay activists had their idealistic hearts in the right place but it turned out they had underestimated the realpolitik of organized crime. Indeed, as gay liberation blossomed in the wild 1970s the bars and bathhouses became increasingly lucrative enterprises, and the Mafia had no intention of abandoning a racket it had controlled for decades. The Mafia families maintained their control by exercising the proverbial carrot and stick. The wise guys seemingly embraced the gay rights movement and cut more so-called Auntie Gays into the action as their fronts, and resorted to violent threats and sometimes murder against others who refused to play ball with the crime families. There were few legitimate businessmen in gay nightlife of the 1970s. ~ Phillip Crawford Jr.

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are times when words are extra, like raindrops on drenched grass. There are times for holding. He held her ... ~ Bud Macfarlane Jr.

If you don't act like your poor, pretty soon you will be ~ Ronald A. Martin Jr.

Nothing ever happens for dreamers and talkers; opportunity must be seized or created by sheer force of will and ambition. ~ Robert A. Rice Jr.

Save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

Any nation allowing its people the right of freedom of speech is powerless to defend itself against enemies masquerading as patriotic; and seeking to obstruct, impede, break down, and destroy the proper functioning of its republican form of government under the guide of honest criticism ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Christians will support the people of Israel simply because they live in the land of Israel. But we all know Churches worldwide would not want to support Israel if Israel was full of African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. Christians frequently say "They (other countries) shouldn't mess with the JEWS, they are God's Chosen People". But nobody uses what's in the actual bible to figure out who the Real Children of Israel are today (according to scriptures). So if we still don't know the answer to this question then who are we? Imbeciles? Bastards? Canaanites? Gentiles? THE BRAINWASHING OF THE BLACK CHURCH STARTED IN SLAVERY AND IS PUSHED ONTO THE YOUNG ~ Ronald Dalton Jr

I never forget those who do me a favor, and I never forget those who don't! ~ JR

If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Each generation identifies with a small group of people said to have lived lives exemplifying the vices and virtues of that generation. If one were to choose a trial lawyer whose life reflected the unique characteristics of America's "Wild West" of a criminal justice system in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, that person likely would be my father.

New York City of the 1960s until the turn of the 21st century was the world's epicenter of organized and white-collar crime. During those four decades, the most feared mafia chiefs, assassins, counterfeiters, Orthodox Jewish money launderers, defrocked politicians of every stripe, and Arab bankers arriving in the dead of night in their private jets, sought the counsel of one man: my father, Jimmy La Rossa.

Once a Kennedy-era prosecutor, Brooklyn-born Jimmy La Rossa became one of the greatest criminal trial lawyers of his day. He was the one man who knew where all of the bodies were buried, and everyone knew it. It seemed incomprehensible that Jimmy would one day just disappear from New York. Forever.

After stealing my dying father from New York Presbyterian Hospital to a waiting Medevac jet, the La Rossa Boys, as we became known, spent the next five years in a place where few would look for two diehard New Yorkers: a coastal town in the South Bay of Los Angeles, aptly named Manhattan Beach.

While I cooked him his favorite Italian dishes and kept him alive using the most advanced ~ James M. LaRossa Jr.

I am not interested in standing for what I believe in, but in standing for the truth. I and my conscience are liars. God's law is truth. ~ R.C. Sproul Jr.

The Tea Party and the like are about what we can't do, instead of the American ideal of what we can. ~ Rush D. Holt, Jr.

I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and everytime you begin to hate that person and think of hating that
person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

My opponents will do anything they can to distract from their own flawed candidate. Bob Menendez is under federal criminal investigation. As far as I know, he is the only candidate for Senate under federal criminal investigation. ~ Thomas Kean, Jr.

And since discriminating fans can pick and choose exactly what they want to buy, artists and their labels are more conscious than they've ever been of making sure that every song on a new album is as good as can be. ~ Edgar Bronfman, Jr.

By proving contraries, truth is made manifest. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

Art should be expressed without objectification.It's more than just attraction. Creative expression is not "art for art's sake" but art that breathes true meaning. ~ Henry Johnson Jr

I've played with so many people that I never really noticed that I was playing with so many people until after it was compiled on the Internet. I just kept going. I haven't even heard half the records I've played on, to tell you the truth. ~ Harvey Mason, Jr.