Joseph Fink Quotes

Inside she would be a vessel of fluids and mourning. ~ Joseph Fink

People are beautiful when they do beautiful things. ~ Joseph Fink

City halls are always huge and ornate and topped with ancient volcanic stone towers. ~ Joseph Fink

PROVERB: Eating meat is a difficult moral decision, because it's stolen, that meat. You should apologize. ~ Joseph Fink

Diane, in Jackie's mind, looked just like a woman who would be an active PTA mom, with her kind face and comfortable clothing. She also thought Diane looked like a woman who would be a loan officer, with her conservative makeup choices and serious demeanor. She would look like a pharmacist if she ever were to wear the standard white coat, gas mask, and hip waders. ~ Joseph Fink

As they stepped outside into the sandy dusk, the bell on the door jingled faintly in Jackie's mind like a favorite song to which she could no longer quite remember the tune. ~ Joseph Fink

I love you," she called, hoping it wasn't too late. "I love you too," he said back, not loudly enough to be heard. ~ Joseph Fink

Wednesday has been canceled due to a scheduling error. ~ Joseph Fink

Dammit!" she said, stabbing the paper with her butter knife and then repeated "Dammit" a couple of more times in a hopeless decrescendo.
"KING CITY," said the paper.
"Yeah, yeah, so I've heard," she muttered. No one around her noticed. Teenagers shout things a lot while smashing knives near their hands, everyone knew. ~ Joseph Fink

There was a Taco Bell where people could pee. There was a gas station where people could pee. There were all sorts of things. The mayor was proud of his town. ~ Joseph Fink

I was all caught up in my thoughts.

She waved her hand to indicate where her thoughts were. ~ Joseph Fink

It was a simpler time. Because I personally had less memories and so less to superimpose upon the world, and so it was much clearer, and also I was younger. Thus, the world was simpler. ~ Joseph Fink

Each day the sun rises and sets. The moon pulls the tides. Our hearts beat. Our loved ones love us back. And we share our inhales and exhales with the great organism that is our tiny planet. ~ Joseph Fink

Diane suddenly felt like the words she was saying were twisting in her mouth and coming out as different words altogether. ~ Joseph Fink

How do you say everything you've wanted to say to a person who has been a big part of your life and doesn't know you at all? "Diane, ~ Joseph Fink

You will know recycling has been picked up because your recycling bags will be gone and there will be a large, reddish brown smear across your front door roughly in the shape of an X. Or maybe it's a cross. It's not clear in the brochure I've been handed, which has no words, only dark black-and-white photographs of angled shadows along brick walls. I mean, municipal one-sheets are kind of useless, but this one is at least haunting. ~ Joseph Fink

Here is what we know about sentience. Sand is sentient. The desert is sentient. The sky is not sentient. Plants are intermittently sentient. Dogs are the most sentient. We are not sentient. The planet as a whole is sentient. The parts that make up that whole are not sentient. Holes are sentient. We are not sentient. Gift cards are sentient until they expire. States in which it is illegal for gift cards to expire have created immortal sentience. Money is not sentient. The concept of private property is sentient. Sand is sentient. The desert is sentient. We are not sentient. ~ Joseph Fink

The only pawn shop in the town of Night Vale is run by the very young Jackie Fierro. It has no name, but if you need it, you will know where it is. This knowledge will come suddenly, often while you are in the shower. You will collapse, surrounded by a bright glowing blackness, and you will find yourself on your hands and knees, the warm water running over you, and you will know where the pawn shop is. You will smell must, and soap, and feel a stab of panic about how alone you are.

It will be like most showers you've taken. ~ Joseph Fink

She loved him the way one loves an old bridge or a wool sweater or the sound of a growing tulip. ~ Joseph Fink

He doesn't think of himself as the him that exists in this moment but as the him that will exist soon. He is not far away from the him that he really is. He will be that version of himself very soon. ~ Joseph Fink

Aren't we all, metaphorically, just looking for a bathroom? ~ Joseph Fink

Monday would like for you to leave it alone. It is not its fault that you are emotionally unprepared for your own professional lives. ~ Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

I raised you for fifteen years. I fed you and clothed you. I loved you and still do. I love you because you have been with me for fifteen years. I am your mother because we have been together your whole childhood. I have earned you as my son. ~ Joseph Fink

The study found widespread dissatisfaction with our town's public library, and, when considering the facts, it's easy to see why. The public computers for Internet use are outdated and slow. The lending period of fourteen days is not nearly long enough to read lengthier books, given the busy schedule of all our lives. The fatality rate is also well above the national average for public libraries. ~ Joseph Fink

But, as you watch the sun rise again tomorrow morning, think to yourself: past performance is not a predictor of future results. And then force a smile, drink another cup of coffee, and try not to look down as you walk across the soil that will eventually fill your lifeless lungs and repurpose your corpse. ~ Joseph Fink

Diane would occasionally find notes he had written. This had happened before. Sometimes it was actually happenstance, and sometimes the faceless old woman who secretly lives in their home would move his notes to where Diane would see them because the faceless old woman was bored and found the troubles of others interesting. Always Diane said she believed in his privacy and always she meant it, but also it always happened that she had read the entire note before she realized what it was. This was not a pattern that she was aware of, but it was one that Josh was very familiar with. ~ Joseph Fink

Taking a shower often solved problems for her. She would find herself with thoughts that seemed to come from outside her, thoughts that would question decisions or offer suggestions or just consider life hazily in a way that made it seem like the thoughts could not possibly be her own. ~ Joseph Fink

...their relationship was a point of near-constant discussion in Night Vale, all of their imperfections and faults, which made them individuals worth loving. They had built those faults into the usual messy, comfortable, patched-up, beautiful structure that any functioning long-term relationship ended up being. ~ Joseph Fink

Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the tabletop, and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past, a solid, single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held. ~ Joseph Fink

Each death leads to smaller, invisible deaths inside the hearts of those left behind. ~ Joseph Fink

KEVIN: But there are many reasons we have to do our broadcasting from here.
LAUREN: It sends a message.
KEVIN: It sure does. It sends several fun messages for everyone to enjoy. Anyway, the boys in Sales, who are all named Shawn, came by and with their help I was able to make this studio feel a little more like home. They put up a bit of a fuss about the changes, but that's just because no one likes change. There are some people who don't understand progress, you know.
LAUREN: I'll miss the Shawns.
KEVIN: I'll miss them too, but look how much nicer this places looks. You can see the Shawns' contributions all over the desk.
LAUREN: And running down the walls. Yes, SO much nicer. ~ Joseph Fink

LAUREN: You know, Cecil, I was never a Girl Scout myself, but I can say I am thrilled to support your endeavor to help bring your niece...I'm sorry. What was her name again?
CECIL: I don't want to um -
LAUREN: Janice. It was Janice. I love the way you are taking part in Janice's life. You must really care for her.
CECIL: Yes. With all my heart. But - ~ Joseph Fink

As a last resort, with the orange nearing my face and my back pressing hard against the sharp edge of my broadcast table, I grabbed my phone to tell Carlos that if I didn't make it home tonight, it wasn't because I didn't love him, or didn't want to watch a documentary on special scientific graphs, or was too obsessed with my job to relax and enjoy a good meal and some television. It was only because I was zapped out of existence by a lunatic Non-John Peters. And that, in fact, I do love Carlos, and I would want nothing more than to watch a documentary on scientific graphs over some homemade linguini, or go out to eat again, or whatever.

But then, as I grabbed my phone, I thought: That's way too long to write for a text. So I just hit John Peters upside the head with it... ~ Joseph Fink

Sometimes you go through things that seem huge at the time, like a mysterious glowing cloud devouring your entire community. While they're happening, they feel like the only thing that matters and you can hardly imagine that there's a world out there that might have anything else going on. And then the glow cloud moves on. And you move on. And the event is behind you. And you may find, as time passes, that you remember it less and less. Or absolutely not at all, in my case. ~ Cecil Baldwin

Data gathering: She was alone in the desert with a possible murderous cult member.
Hypothesis: shit. ~ Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

... but what are people but deaths that haven't happened yet?"
"Births that already happened?" Jacky said without thinking.
The mayor laughed. She looked different when she laughed, and then she stopped laughing and she did not look different anymore. ~ Joseph Fink

It's a kind of assault, this constant insistence that we can't be publicly acknowledged. Sometimes an act as simple as a person recognizing you, your bulk, the tangibility of your skin. That can mean everything. ~ Joseph Fink

People often found themselves assenting to inanimate objects in the Moonlite All-Nite. ~ Joseph Fink

KEVIN: And now a word from our sponsors. Lauren?
LAUREN: Thank, Kev. Can I call you Kev?
KEVIN: Haha. No Lauren, by no means. ~ Joseph Fink

Jackie's good arm was out the window, the sandy air tickling her skin with hundreds of inconsequential stings, a tangible Morse code saying something meaningless. Jackie ~ Joseph Fink

We will investigate at some point in the future, when we feel like we are maybe more interested than we are now. Until then, we will continue on in ignorance, happy as we ever were. ~ Joseph Fink

Everything I do is for a reason. And I don't know what that reason is. Everything I do is for a reason, and I know none of them. Everything makes sense, and the sense is hidden from me. ~ Joseph Fink

sadness is eternal, that weakness is another word for humanity, and that all will pass, all will pass. She ~ Joseph Fink

Most people in Night Vale get by with a cobbled-together framework of lies and assumptions and conspiracy theories. Diane was like most people. Most people are. ~ Joseph Fink

Of course, angels do not exist. It is illegal to consider their existence, or even to give them a dollar when they forget bus money and start hovering around the Ralphs asking for change. ~ Joseph Fink

Science was meant to be hard. After all, what was science but a bunch of bored human beings trying to challenge themselves when faith became too easy? ~ Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

What?' Diane was enjoying listening to Cecil. She loved the end of his show, when he said, 'Good night, Night Vale, good night.' No matter how difficult her life was or how troublesome the news he was reporting, his voice and his sign-off put her at such ease. ~ Joseph Fink

We don't have our children. We have the faint, distorted echoes of our children that this town has sent back to us. ~ Joseph Fink

Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that's not the right question. The question is: Are we living a life that is worth the harm? ~ Joseph Fink

It seemed safer to not have friends or hobbies. To sit at work, head down, doing her job, and then sit at home, glass after glass of orange juice, radio on, safe from anything that might disrupt her routine. ~ Joseph Fink

Nowhere, the tarantula felt nothing at all. ~ Joseph Fink

To be remembered is, I think, a badic human right. Not one that occurs to a person when it is there, but like a parched throat in a desert when it is gone. ~ Joseph Fink

She stuck to side streets, riding slowly, with care. The trip took a little under an hour, and Diane was feeling a pulsing pain in her calf by the time sh pulled up to the front of the pawnshop. There was a black sedan with tinted windows at the end of the lot--the windows cracked down enough for her to see two sunglassed agents of a vague yet menacing government agency. One of them raised her camera and tried to take a photo of Diane, but the camera flashed, only reflecting the car window back at the lens. The agent swore. Diane waved a cursory hello at them and walked into the store. ~ Joseph Fink

Sorry, listeners. I need to go make sure she's all right. I take you now to the sound of a human stomach digesting, heavily amplified and electronically distorted. ~ Joseph Fink

She continued to look out the window for a moment, her humanity and thoughtfulness tucked away inside a tight frown, an honest brushstroke in a boring painting. ~ Joseph Fink

History is us squinting into the past, mistaking millions of tiny vibrations in all directions for unified, unidirectional movements by entire civilizations. ~ Joseph Fink

Hulu Plus: Good for criminals. ~ Joseph Fink

A human head with the face and hair of a fifteen-year-old boy emerged form the body of the spider, and the abdomen filled out into something of a primate-like torso. The legs remained spindly and long. He thought he looked cool driving a car as a wolf spider. He did look cool, although it was difficult to control the car. It was important to him that he look cool while driving, although he would not have been able to articulate why. ~ Joseph Fink

For her part, Diane did not have a good reason for why she wouldn't tell Josh anything about his father. She didn't have a good reason for most of what she did. Mostly, she went by what seemed right in the moment, and justified it to herself later, and in this way she was no different than anyone else she knew. ~ Joseph Fink

Pepsi: Drink Coke. ~ Joseph Fink

Last night, at a press conference, the City Council reminded everyone that the Dog Park is there for our community enjoyment and use, and so it is important that no one enter, look at, or think about the Dog Park. They are adding a new advanced camera system to keep an eye on the great black walls of the Dog Park at all times, and if anyone is caught trying to enter it, they will be forced to enter it, and will never be heard from again. If you see hooded figures in the Dog Park, no you didn't. The hooded figures are perfectly safe, and should not be approached at any costs. The City Council ended the conference by devouring a raw potato in quick, small bites of their sharp teeth and rough tongues. No follow-up questions were asked, although there were a few follow-up screams.
We have also received word via encrypted radio pulses about the opening of a new store: Lenny's Bargain House of Gardenwares and Machine Parts, which until recently was that abandoned warehouse the government was using for the highly classified and completely secret tests I was telling you about last week. Lenny's will serve as a helpful new source for all needs involving landscaping and lawn-decorating materials and also as a way for the government to unload all the machines and failed tests and dangerous substances that otherwise would be wasted on things like "safe disposal" or "burying in a concrete tomb until the sun goes out."
Get out to Lenny's for their big grand opening sale. Find eig ~ Joseph Fink

Cecil Palmer spoke of the horrors of everyday life. Nearly every broadcast told a story of impending doom or death, or worse: a long life lived in fruitless fear of doom or death. It wasn't that Jackie wanted to know all of the bad news of the world. It was that she loved sitting in the dark of her bedroom, swaddled in blankets and invisible radio waves. ~ Joseph Fink

In terms of tacos, she was doing fine. ~ Joseph Fink

The vague yet menacing government agency would like to remind you that UFOs are totally not a thing. They remind you that UFOs are merely weather balloons, and further, that weather balloons are merely misplaced clouds, that clouds are merely dreams that have escaped our sleep, that sleep is merely a practice for death, that death is merely another facet of our world, no different from, say, sand or bicycles, and that the great glowing earth is merely the last thoughts of a dying man, laughing and shaking his head weakly at the improbability of it all. Remember, it's not just the law. It's an ~ Joseph Fink

He'll be what he'll be. And we'll all learn to be okay with whatever that is. ~ Joseph Fink

Josh loved his mother, but he did not know why. Diane loved her son, and she did not care why. ~ Joseph Fink

You were my baby. But babies become children, and they go to elementary schools that indoctrinate them on how to overthrow governments, and they get interested in boys and girls, or they don't, and anyway they change. They go to high schools, where they learn dangerous things. They grow into adults, and become dangerous things. ~ Joseph Fink

It had been a mistake to accept what the man in the tan jacket had offered her. She didn't know what it was, or what it meant, or what information it was trying to convey and to whom. But she knew that it had changed something. The world was slipping into her life. And she had to push it out, starting with this slip of paper, and the man in the tan jacket. ~ Joseph Fink

There always seems to be something upsetting you. You should relax more. It's not that there' s nothing coming to get you, there's everything coming to get you…but relax anyway, just on principle. ~ Joseph Fink

Don't worry. Don't worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and fleeting. Don't worry. ~ Joseph Fink

We live in a pattern that we'll never detect, and that will shuffle us through invisible hierarchies to the actual death of us. ~ Joseph Fink

It's a sign of a good diner to have customers who are stuck in time. A well-known rule of eating is that if there are no time-loop customers, the place probably isn't worth even ordering a plate of fries. ~ Joseph Fink

The other option was to go to the public library. Few people came back from a visit to the library. There was one girl a few years ago the survived the summer reading program at the Night Vale Public Library. The girl, Tamika Flynn, defeated the librarian that had imprisoned her and her classmates using the switchblade hidden in every hardback edition of Eudora Welty's touching homecoming novel, The Optimist's Daughter. But few who have seen a librarian up close have survived or been in a physical condition to communicate. ~ Joseph Fink

One day we will destroy the moon with indifference! ~ Joseph Fink

Lady, I've trained for months. I've taken down your helicopters with only a slingshot. I've looked a librarian right in the area where most creatures would have eyes. You. Do. Not. Scare me. ~ Joseph Fink

I feel like the breath before a scream. ~ Joseph Fink And Jeffrey Cranor

Like a lot of my creative decisions (and important life decisions, come to think of it), I don't have any sort of rational account of my reasoning. It just felt right and I went with it. ~ Joseph Fink

The drive was difficult, because at this point it seemed that everyone in town but the two of us had hopped onto the buzzing shadow entity train, and were loping around town as malevolent holes in our reality, emanating an energy that made the hairs on your arm stand and your bowels vibrate. Or maybe that was just the chemistry with Carlos I was feeling. ~ Joseph Fink

I don't know who I am and I don't understand the progression of time as it relates to me," said Jackie. Leann nodded. "We've all been there. ~ Joseph Fink

This, the idea of relationships bit, was all conjecture on her part. She herself felt too young to try to figure out her own life, let alone someone else's life near hers, and so she had never even sought out companionship of that type. Jackie thought about dating from time to time in the distant way a person thinks about eventually becoming famous or owning a castle or growing ram's horns. They're all achievable, realistic goals, but by turning objectives into mere fantasies, she never had to go through the trouble of achieving or maintaining them. ~ Joseph Fink

Night Vale, my sweet and only Night Vale, may you find love. May you find it wherever it's been hidden. May you find who has been hiding it and extract revenge upon them. ~ Joseph Fink

This episode isn't about spiders. Nor owls. It's about looking at something and thinking you understand what it is. It's about assuming the best of what you see only to find out quite suddenly that it is the worst.

This kind of misunderstanding has always been, to me, the most compelling kind of horror. The StrexPet here is that issue of Zoobooks. ~ Joseph Fink

I took a walk on the cool sand dunes, brittle grass overgrown, and above me, in the night sky, above me, I saw. Bitter taste of unripe peaches and a smell I could not place, nor could I escape. I remembered other times that I could not escape. I remembered other smells. The moon slunk like a wounded animal. The world spun like it had lost control. Concentrate only on breathing and let go of ideas you had about nutrition and alarm clocks. I took a walk on the cool sand dunes, brittle grass overgrown, and above me, in the night sky, above me, I saw.
This message brought to you by Coca-Cola. ~ Joseph Fink

If you have homes, I suggest you flee them. If you have friends, I suggest you warn them. If you have children, did you not know how dangerous and unpredictable the world was when you created a defenseless tiny human within it? And ~ Joseph Fink

Your music, your lyrics, the leaden prose of your life that proves that everything you are and are not, the structures you build to make futility seem like meaning, the dead and living – who will soon be dead, who will soon be gone, who will soon be smoke – rising in columns and forming clouds in the night sky. For now and ever, by the will of dead and dying gods. ~ Joseph Fink

It's nice to have a station pet. Wish it wasn't trapped in a hovering prison in the men's bathroom, but listen: no pet is perfect. It becomes perfect when you learn to accept it for what it is. ~ Cecil Baldwin

Imagine teaching a fifteen-year-old how to drive a car with manual transmission. First, you have to press down the clutch. Then you have to whisper a secret into one of the cup holders. ~ Joseph Fink

Fair,' Josie said. 'Then we'll talk about a man in a tan jacket holding a deerskin suitcase.' She clutched her left hand against her side like she had a pain there, but no pain registered on her face. ~ Joseph Fink

Colorful posters with appealing statements like "Get into a good book this summer" and "We are going to force you into a good book this summer" and "You are going to get inside this book and we are going to close it on you and there is nothing you can do about it" have appeared overnight around the library entrance and in local shops and businesses... ~ Joseph Fink

Valentine's Day is a disaster. Any day that is designed to perfectly encapsulate something as messy and personal as two people in a romantic relationship would have to be. But in Night Vale it also kills people. This is called satire. ~ Joseph Fink

It is approximately his ten thousandth day of being human. And yet, for all his days, he is not yet very good at being a human. He still makes a lot of mistakes. All that time and he still is unsure of himself. ~ Joseph Fink

Jackie.'
'Mm.'
'Thank you for keeping me company in my nightmare.'
Jackie grinned at her,
'Nah, it's our nightmare now. ~ Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

when Cecil talked it was possible to let some of that go. To let go of the worries. To let go of the questions. To let go of letting or going. ~ Joseph Fink

She was angry, which is the more productive cousin of fear. ~ Joseph Fink

If we cannot be judged on our actions, then we cannot be judged. ~ Joseph Fink

The beautiful thing about Kevin - besides Kevin himself - is how his voice is so different from Cecil's. It worked perfectly for the duality in this episode. Cecil's voice is deep, dark, serious. Kevin's is bright, light, and smiling. So much smiling.

He appears only briefly in this part of the episode, but the first time I heard the audio file, it really did bring tears to my eyes. Kevin's character is so utterly horrifying and with such a chipper, sunny voice. I didn't know whether I was laughing or crying. ~ Joseph Fink

I mean, I believe in mountains and all, but I understand it's a controversial viewpoint. I would never force that viewpoint on others. ~ Joseph Fink

You may not live through it. And if you do, the you that lived through it will not be the same you that lived before it. In that sense, you will definitely not exist after, and I'm sorry. ~ Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor

I'm...um...I've got guests in my studio. I don't know how they undid my secure barricade made of cardboard signs that said KEEP OUT! and SECRET ROOM! in all caps with an exclamation point, but it's my program director, Lauren, and some man I've never seen bef - but no, I have seen him before. ~ Joseph Fink

She looked old, felt young, was neither. ~ Joseph Fink