Scott Spencer Quotes

Everything creepy and Southern isn't Faulknerian, just like everything annoying isn't Kafkaesque. ~ Scott Spencer

Like you and me," said Jade. "How we used to be."
"What do you mean? Crazy?"
"Living on our own world. Believing what we felt was separate from everything else. We couldn't do anything except be together and nothing else was real."
"That's right."
"Well, that's crazy. And you just said it was, even you."
"No, " I said, "not when we both believe it. Crazy people are alone and no one understands what they mean. But that's not our way. We both know and it makes complete sense. It's not when you make it true by living it. And other people believe it, too, remember. Believe it about us. Everyone who knows us, sees us together. We have that effect. ~ Scott Spencer

I never felt so large and important as I did when being in love was everything. I saw you walking a foot above the earth and I remembered that was where I used to walk. ~ Scott Spencer

All of us have two minds, a private one, which is usually strange, I guess, and symbolic, and a public one, a social one. Most of us stream back and forth between those two minds, drifting around in our private self and then coming forward into the public self whenever we need to. But sometimes you get a little slow making the transition, you drag out the private part of your life and people know you're doing it. They almost always catch on, knowing that someone is standing before them thinking about things that can't be shared, like the one monkey that knows where a freshwater pond is. And sometimes the public mind is such a total bummer and the private self is alive with beauty and danger and secrets and things that don't make any sense but that repeat and repeat and demand to be listened to, and you find it harder and harder to come forward. The pathway between those two states of mind suddenly seems very steep, a hell of a lot of work and not really worth it. Then I think it becomes a matter of what side of the great divide you get caught on. Some people get stuck on the public, approved side and they're all right, for what it's worth. And some people get stuck on the completely strange and private side of the divide, and that's what we call crazy and its not really completely wrong to call it that but it doesn't say it as it truly is. It's more like a lack of mobility, a transportation problem, getting stuck, being the us we are in private but not stopping… ~ Scott Spencer

He welcomes the chance to do fatherly things with the little girl, and those ten morning minutes with dear little four-year-old Ruby, with her deep soulful eyes, and the wondrous things she sees with them, and her deep soulful voice, and the precious though not entirely memorable things she says with it, and the smell of baby shampoo and breakfast cereal filling the car, that little shimmering capsule of time is like listening to cello music in the morning, or watching birds in a flutter of industry building a nest, it simply reminds you that even if God is dead, or never existed in the first place, there is, nevertheless, something tender at the center of creation, some meaning, some purpose and poetry. ~ Scott Spencer

I never think of the life I'll miss after I'm dead, or all that I missed before I was born. It's the time I'm as good as dead during this, my one and only life, that makes me tear at my hair. It seems to me that if I carefully gathered all of the time I was entirely alive I would have amassed perhaps two years of life so far ... ~ Scott Spencer

The only things I regret, and the only things I'll ever regret are things I didn't do. In the end, that's what we mourn. The paths we didn't take. The people we didn't touch. ~ Scott Spencer

On a ship that's made of paper, I would sail the seven seas. (Just to be with you.) ~ Scott Spencer

A novelist is someone who sits around the house all day in his underwear, trying not to smoke. ~ Scott Spencer

heavy, sullen girl with a face as blunt and expressionless as a knee, ~ Scott Spencer

No pain could match the emptiness of separation, no agony rivaled the unreality of not being with her. ~ Scott Spencer

If endless love was a dream, then it was a dream we all shared, even more that we all shared the dream of never dying or traveling through time, and if anything set me apart it was not my impulses but my stubbornness, my willingness to take the dream past what had been agreed upon as the reasonable limits, to declare that this dream was not a feverish trick of the mind but was an actuality at least as real as that other, thinner more unhappy illusion we call normal life. ~ Scott Spencer

I knew from the start that I loved her and knew, as well, that I would never fall back from that love, never try, never want to. ~ Scott Spencer

I try to know as much as I can about a book before the beginning, but I never know exactly where it's going to end. ~ Scott Spencer

All I wanted was what I'd already had. That exultation, that love. It was my one real home; I was a visitor everywhere else. ~ Scott Spencer

I had known another world. It is impossible to give it a name. There are words like enchantment, words like bliss, but they didn't say it, they were stupid words. No words really said it. There was nothing to say about it except that I had known it, it had been mine. It was the one real thing, more real than the world. ~ Scott Spencer

I thought of my mother ( ... ). Freud wrote that no man is secure in the love of his mother can ever be a failure. Well, I had been busy proving that theory wrong. ~ Scott Spencer

It was the first time I had heard the truth of what happened that afternoon said in a voice that was not my own. Hearing what happened from Ann was like the difference between seeing your face in a mirror and seeing it in a photograph. ~ Scott Spencer

The trouble with excuses, however, is that they become inevitably difficult to believe after they've been used a couple of times. ~ Scott Spencer

From the time I learned to love Jade and was drawn into the life of the Butterfield house, straight through to the wait for my case to come before the judge, there was nothing in my life that wasn't alive with meaning, that wasn't capable of suggesting weird and hidden significances, that didn't carry with it the undertaste of what for lack of anything better to call it I'll call The Infinite. If being in love is to be suddenly united with the most unruly, the most outrageously alive part of yourself, this state of piercing consciousness did not subside in me, as I've learned it does in others, after a time. If my mind could have made a sound, it would have burst a row of wineglasses. I saw coincidences everywhere; meanings darted and danced like overheated molecules. Everything was terrifyingly complex; everything was terrifyingly simple. Nothing went unnoticed and everything carried with it a kind of drama. ~ Scott Spencer

I don't want to say it, I truly don't, but if you've gone this far I suppose it's obvious that what was ignited when I loved you continues to burn. But that's of small importance to you now, and that's how it should be. Everything is in its place. The past rests, breathing faintly in the darkness. It no longer holds me as it used to; now I must reach back to touch it. It is night and I am alone and there is still time, a moment more. I am standing on a long black stage, with a circle of light on me, which is my love for you, enduring. I have escaped - or have been expelled - from eternity and am back in time. But I step out once more to sing this aria, this confession, this testament without end. My arms open wide, not to embrace you but to embrace the world, the mystery we are caught in. There is no orchestra, no audience; it is an empty theater in the middle of the night and all the clocks in the world are ticking. And now for this last time, Jade, I don't mind, or even ask if it is madness: I see your face, I see you, you; I see you in every seat. ~ Scott Spencer

I'm speaking to you man to man," he said, "not doctor to patient. How much longer can you continue denying yourself? You can't live without warmth." "Warmth?" I said, sending him a 'shut up' message. "Yes. Sexual expression. David, you don't even masturbate." We were silent for at least a minute. My intrigues huddled within me like guerilla warriors, hiding behind other thoughts. Finally, I thought of something to say: "If we're going to talk man to man and not doctor to patient, then I don't think you should charge me for this hour. ~ Scott Spencer

I think it's fairly common for writers to be afflicted with two simultaneous yet contradictory delusions, the burning certainty that we're unique geniuses, and the constant fear that we're witless frauds who are speeding toward epic failure. ~ Scott Lynch

And you be crazy too ... ~ Orson Scott Card

I've been a diehard fan of 'The Simpsons' since I was a kid. ~ Reid Scott

I just want to continue to grow, as an actor, and dig. Hopefully, one day, I'll lose myself in a role. My only worry about that is that I just want to be able to come back home. I don't want to get lost forever. That scares me. ~ Jill Scott

People living alone get used to loneliness. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

What could go wrong ... Doing some stupid impulsive thing that caused the death of drowthers was practically a family tradition. ~ Orson Scott Card

I love all of our subpodcasts. ~ Scott Aukerman

Actors should be better poker players. But I think there's actual skill and crazy guts that you need to play poker - this ability to put all this money on the line inside of that game of cards. There's this whole different set of skills that doesn't apply to acting whatsoever. ~ Tom Everett Scott

I totally carpe-d the snot out of this diem! ~ Jerry Scott

Do not mistake me, Inrithi. In this much Conphas is right. You are all staggering drunks to me. Boys who would play at war when you should kennel with your mothers. You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill not daring. It is not a trial of souls, nor the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.
You have offered me war, and I have accepted. Nothing more. I will not regret your losses. I will not bow my head before your funeral pyres. I will not rejoice at your triumphs. But I have taken the wager. I will suffer with you. I will put Fanim to the sword, and drive their wives and children to the slaughter. And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart. ~ R. Scott Bakker

money distorts truth like a hippo in a thong. ~ Scott Adams

SpaceX does seem to have had a run of bad luck, with its first three launches all failing. ~ Henry Spencer

It wasn't the reward that mattered or the recognition you might harvest. It was your depth of commitment, your quality of service, the product of your devotion - these were the things that counted in life. When you gave purely, the honor in giving, and that was honor enough. ~ Scott O'Grady

Life is precarious and improbable, a flame in matter, easily snuffed out. Nature shows no regard for the individual spark, in this creature or that, but only for the spreading of the fire, like an ember passed from cell to cell. ~ Scott Russell Sanders

My wife was a riddle. I think all women are. Men are not riddles, even the smart ones. We are independent clauses, such as: "I like meat." "Water feel good. ~ Harrison Scott Key

I love my virginity to the apocalypse. ~ Scott Westerfeld

He had despised the sorcerer, thinking him one of those mewling souls who forever groaned beneath burdens of their own manufacture. ~ R. Scott Bakker

Learn from them, because I will always be there, one step ahead of you, programming more difficult and advanced patterns into the computer so that your next battle is more difficult, so that you are pushed ~ Orson Scott Card

One of the reasons we think this market will start to run out of gas at some point is that you've essentially created as much gold from straw as you can from this financial alchemy ~ Scott Simon

What is that *smell*?"
Eliot shook his head. "I keep telling you, it's fresh air. ~ Keith R.A. DeCandido

Skiing was my passion. Running was a means to stay in shape for that. ~ Scott Jurek

firmly believe in the concept of Happily Ever After. For everyone. No matter how or who or when they fell in love. Because that love existed, they felt it, and that is worth everything. Love ~ Emma Scott

If you had any brains, you'd be in a real career, like selling life insurance. ~ Orson Scott Card

I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never write anything but mediocre poetry. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? ~ M. Scott Peck

I have a problem with a church that has its main mission aimed at preferential treatment of rich, attractive, influential, and gifted people. Instead, it should be more concerned with its people's spiritual growth instead of administering an ancient museum. ~ Scott S. Haraburda

Very rarely, with the spur of jealousy or forced separation, the ancient ecstasies returned, the apparent communion of soul and soul, the emotion excitement. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

She was overstrained with grief and loneliness: almost any shoulder would have done as well. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

When I got the script for Thelma & Louise, when I met with the director, Ridley Scott, I said, "I don't want to do a revenge film. I'm not interested in doing that moment in the script after they shoot the truck, where it says they jump up and down and they're real happy about it". ~ Susan Sarandon

As followers of natural science we know nothing of any relation between thoughts and the brain, except as a gross correlation in time and space. ~ Charles Scott Sherrington

Innovation is significant positive change. ~ Scott Berkun

When I start a piece of work with a client, I want to know two things straight away: why are they doing this work, and what do they want to achieve when it's finished. You may be surprised (though I'm not any more) to hear that in most cases no-one actually knows. ~ Donna Spencer

Very strong personalities must confine themselves in mutual conversation to very gentle subjects. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Jelly-bean is the name throughout the undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to idle in the first person singular- - I am idling, I have idled, I will idle ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

One day you will wonder what was so important that you put off doing the most important things. 'Someday' can be a thief in the night. ~ Deborah Brown

The race of humankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. ~ Walter Scott

I lived to make Scott Baio laugh. ~ Willie Aames

Louise de Keroualle, being a Frenchwoman from the French court, was feared by most Englishmen for how she might influence their king, and that fear quickly turned to hatred. ~ Susan Holloway Scott

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. ~ M. Scott Peck

Advice," Doña Vorchenza chuckled. "Advice. The years play a sort of alchemical trick, transmuting one's mutterings to a state of respectability. Give advice at forty and you're a nag. Give it at seventy and you're a sage. ~ Scott Lynch

Because looking at you is like falling into a black hole - stupid, confusing, and probably
detrimental to my existence. ~ Kimberly Spencer