Stephin Merritt Quotes

I don't remember things initially when listening to music. Like, I don't remember where I first heard a song, I don't have nostalgic attachment to a song in that it reminds me of such and such a time or place. I think I probably did experience that somewhat when I was not a full-time, professional musician, but I don't think music works that way for people who are in it constantly. ~ Stephin Merritt

Surf is that music which is entirely about evoking something. There's never any vocals, so it's not about the lyrics, it's about the reverb. ~ Stephin Merritt

You stuttered like a kaleidoscope, because you knew too many words. ~ Stephin Merritt

Inherent in every living thing is an insatiable hunger, the innate desire to express life by freely and fully being "what" it was uniquely created to be. To personalize this, consider the possibility that there was a time when you were a "what" before you were a "who." If you can wrap your mind around that possibility, then, the question to explore is, what were you before you became a who - and why did you become the who you uniquely are when there are so many other "who"s on the planet you might have been? While this may seem like a bit of a paradoxi- cal tongue twister, it is the quintessential question that requires exploration if you are to follow your true North Star back to your point of origin, where you'll find your authentic self waiting to weave itself into the fabric of your human life today and every day. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

I wish I didn't want the exotic man who knows the entire history of jazz, and instead wanted the teacher, who has his flaws but whose kindness is as rare as genius. ~ Merritt Tierce

A wonderful bird is the pelican His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week, But I'm damned if I see how the helican. ~ Dixon Lanier Merritt

The primary purpose of reading the Bible is not to know the Bible but to know God. ~ James Merritt

Here we are being hard and relentlessly dazzling in spite of whatever shit. We are saying to each other If you have an affliction, any remorse or anguish, eat it, drink it, snort it, fuck it, use it, suck it, kill it. ~ Merritt Tierce

A sign in the window advertised the
long extinct Miller Genuine Draft. ~ Tom Merritt

Association with my pupils has kept me young in my work. Criticism of their work has kept my own point of view clear. ~ William Merritt Chase

I'm a writer, first and foremost, and I sort of take my cues from the songwriters of the '70s, who are talking about what's really important to them. ~ Tift Merritt

We will never have a world free of violence until we teach our children to carry peace in their hearts, not guns in their hands. ~ Donna Marie Merritt

The thought of making work that's easily consumed and quickly forgotten - what's the point? I want my work to be cohesive, to age and improve like old leather. ~ Tift Merritt

Success is doing everything you could the right way and saying man, I did the best I could - that's success. ~ Aries Merritt

But when high-profile politicians speak God in the most perfunctory manner possible, it's no wonder supporters and opponents alike avoid speaking God altogether. ~ Jonathan Merritt

It can be very seductive to tell our story to others who will listen because, lets face it, who doesn't love to 'commiserate' (in this context, meaning to share their misery) with other likeminded people. It justifies our attachment to the drama. The interesting thing about telling our story over and over is that it becomes even more deeply ingrained in our minds each time we tell it, and the universe delights in keeping whatever we claim as our story alive. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

Many people are so busy just doing life, getting by day to day, that they lose touch with the deeper purpose and meaning of life itself. They wander aimlessly from day to day and, as days turn into years, on the final day of their journey here, they look back and think, "That's it? Where was the juice and sweetness and meaning of being here?" Without a vision, our life's journey can seem meaningless. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

I think you need a concrete, real-world metaphor to talk about inner life without feeling like a jerk. ~ Tift Merritt

My God, I'd rather go to Europe than go to heaven. ~ William Merritt Chase

If you're in love, love to the limit; and if you hate, why hate like the devil and if it's a fight you're in, get where it's hottest and fight like hell - if you don't life's not worth the living. ~ A. Merritt

The only things those people have that you don't is guts. Do you wanna live forever? ~ Merritt A. Edson

One hundred rounds do not constitute fire power. One hit constitutes fire power. ~ Merritt A. Edson

There was a stirring among the watching women. One came forward holding a chalice that was like thin leaves turned to green crystal. She paused beside the trunk of one of the spectral trees, reached up and drew down to her a branch. A slim girl with half-frightened, half-resentful eyes glided to, her side and threw her arms around the ghostly bole. The woman with the chalice bent the branch and cut it deep with what seemed an arrow-shaped flake of jade. From the wound a faintly opalescent liquid slowly filled the cup. When it was filled the woman beside McKay stepped forward and pressed her own long hands around the bleeding branch. She stepped away and McKay saw that the stream had ceased to flow. She touched the trembling girl and unclasped her arms.

"The Women Of The Woods ~ A. Merritt

You have to be vigilant about keeping your own fire alive. ~ Tift Merritt

Nothing was ever easy or simple, not one blasted thing. ~ Jackie Merritt

When my husband and I went into the bayou between New Orleans and Baton Rouge for a week of intensive marriage counseling after I started burning myself. My parents paid for it and kept the baby. It didn't work but we did have anal sex and the woman counselor gave me a recipe for oatmeal blueberry pancakes that I still make. ~ Merritt Tierce

You must be excessively hungry, Mr. Merritt," she said
graciously. Mademoiselle would have been so proud of her.
"Perhaps you are not a morning person?"
He smiled, finally bringing his devastating sky blue
morning gaze fully upon her face.
"I thought perhaps if I filled my mouth with biscuits, I
might keep my foot out of it for a while. ~ Mona Karel

The power of language transcends the need for survival, and the components of the human brain required for it are too complex and advanced to have developed over time. ~ Jonathan Merritt

You can move from normal to real peace in 57 minutes. ~ Lionel Merritt

My point of view as a writer has to be a lot more ego-less than just like being some performer on stage with a hairdo. ~ Tift Merritt

When I was nominated for a Grammy, my label dropped me - I have a wariness about trying for a hit. ~ Tift Merritt

Where do we find happiness? Unfortunately, the common belief with most people is that happiness is something that happens to them when conditions are just right rather than something that happens through them when they choose to make space for it. While outer conditions may stimulate the feeling of happiness, it can never come from anywhere other than within us. Authentic happiness isn't something we can go out and get, buy, borrow, or steal. Nor can any form of artificial sensory stimulus generate true happiness; it's only something we can be, and it's a choice we make with every breath we take. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

Why would a vampire create a younger vampire if there was a possibility the young one might end up destroying the old one?'
Stephin stared. 'If you can explain to me how this is different from parenting in general I might know how to answer that. ~ Adam Rex

Mindfulness Makes the Mystery Meaningful ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

We were born to be free, to expand our horizons by going where we have never gone before, and not to hang out in the relative comfort and safety of the nest, the known. There is a place within us that is courageous beyond our human understanding; it yearns to explore beyond the boundaries of our daily life. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

A tremendous amount of energy is freed up when you feel that your vision is actually respected and cared for by the people you're working with. ~ Tift Merritt

When we lose our spiritual vocabulary, we lose much more than words. We lose the power of speaking grace, forgiveness, love, and justice over others. ~ Jonathan Merritt

I wish feminism wasn't so scary to people. It should be an evolving concept. I think it's an umbrella term to embrace conflicting ideas. ~ Merritt Wever

A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous, glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil--of people passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices--of armies trembling into dancing atoms of diamond dust beneath the green ray's rhythmic death--of cities rushing out into space upon the wings of that other demoniac force which Olaf had watched at work--of a haunted world through which the assassins of the Dweller's court stole invisible, carrying with them every passion of hell--of the rallying to the Thing of every sinister soul and of the weak and the unbalanced, mystics and carnivores of humanity alike; for well I knew that, once loosed, not any nation could hold the devil-god for long and that swiftly its blight would spread! ~ A. Merritt

If we were to excavate the deepest recesses of our consciousness, we would discover many beliefs about ourselves that are simply not true and that may never have been true. Yet we live from these beliefs as if they were true because we have never identified them clearly enough to question them, to challenge them. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

Claire Hodgson, born Clara Mae Merritt, was the daughter of a prominent Georgia attorney who had once represented Ty Cobb. She was still a teenager when she married Frank Hodgson, a gentleman caller nearly twice her age. ~ Jane Leavy

I was thinking about how a playlist is really so inadequate as opposed to a mixtape because it takes seventeen days to really make a mixtape with a homemade cover that you like and that you'd give away. ~ Tift Merritt

In France, I discovered that I love writing in the city. There's such an intensity to being in the city that matches the intensity of what you're experiencing in your head. ~ Tift Merritt

Taking care of the details was probably how Merritt took back control, and Loralee wondered whether every girl who lost her mother did the same thing when life got muddier than a puddle. ~ Karen White

I used to joke that if acting didn't work out, poetry was my commonsense fallback. ~ Merritt Wever