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Author: Nick Flynn
Quotes of Author: Nick Flynn
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  1. Nick Flynn _ The Reenactments

    My friend asked me if it had been cathartic, to write my memoir. I looked down at the sculptures-it was cathartic for me to look at them, but I could imagine it might have been hell to make them {I was cheered / when I came first to know / that there were flowers also / in hell}. No, I answered-how was it for you to read it? Aristotle, in his Poetics, never promised catharsis for the makers of art, only for the audience.
    book-quotecatharsis

  2. Nick Flynn _ Another Bullshit Night in Suck

    But what of Ham? It didn't matter if he told anyone about his drunken father or not, if he chided him or tried to dress him, if he lifted his struggling body back into bed, if he took his hand and told him where to place his feet, none of this changed the fact of what he'd seen. It's possible he opened a door innocently, followed the sound of Noah's voice cursing God and the sky, possible he didn't even look, that he turned away before seeing. And it's likely that Noah hadn't noticed the door opening, couldn't have told you who had come in, which son, wouldn't remember anyway. Apparently it's God's call. Ham saw his father drunken and naked, and for this he was cursed, and all of his offspring, and the races that led from these offspring, accursed forever.
    book-quotefather

  3. Nick Flynn _ Another Bullshit Night in Suck

    When my grandmother comes to dinner at our house she always carries her own jar of Turner's Special Blend. She knows how much she needs and doesn't want to be caught short. My brother remembers her at Christmas one year, an especially weepy time for her, when she put her hands around his neck and murmured, My little angel, you wouldn't be so hard to kill. And though he knew it was only the whiskey talking, he also knew that the whiskey talked daily.
    book-quote

  4. Nick Flynn

    You do know, right,that between the no-longer & the still-to-comeyou are being continuallytattooed, inkedwith the skulls ofeveryoneyou've ever loved-the you& the you& the you & the you-you don'tsit in a chair, thumbthrough a binder, pick adesign, it simplyhappens each time youbring your fingers to your faceto inhale him back into you . . .tiny skulls, some of us arecovered. You, love, couldsimply tattoo an opendoor, lightpouring in from somewhereoutside, youcould make your body a doorso it appears yo
    tattoopoem

  5. Nick Flynn _ The Ticking Is the Bomb: A

    I've come to believe that the function of torture in our society is not about getting information, in spite of what we might want to believe. It is merely about power. It tells the world that there is now no limit to what we will do when we feel threatened.
    book-quotetortureusa

  6. Nick Flynn _ The Ticking Is the Bomb: A

    It's the way I walk through the world, carrying that fear, that the beloved will go, will die, and that I will be the one to blame.
    book-quotefault

  7. Nick Flynn

    note: The phrase had many meanings in Jesus' time, one of which was "a son born without a father," which, by all accounts, Jesus was. Just as the phras

  8. Nick Flynn _ The Reenactments

    OUT of that moment Jesus was nailed to his cross flowed our attempts to represent it, to create a narrative that could contain it. Yet the body, hanging there, is still, simply, terrible. Caravaggio's genius was to paint Jesus with dirty feet, to bring him back down to earth.
    book-quotetruth

  9. Nick Flynn _ The Ticking Is the Bomb: A

    My statement to Harris that his book contains is specious hyperbole. In , Harris rails against religious fundamentalism, which seems obvious, as well as against religious moderates, which seems intolerant.
    book-quotereligionintolerance

  10. Nick Flynn _ Another Bullshit Night in Suck

    He claims not to be drinking, but I don't think he knows what this means.
    book-quote

  11. Nick Flynn _ Some Ether

    Emptying Town"I want to erase your footprintsfrom my walls. Each pillowis thick with your reasons. Omensfill the sidewalk below my window: a womanin a party hat, clingingto a tin-foil balloon. Shadowscreep slowly across the tar, someone yells, "Stop!"and I close my eyes. I can't watchas this town slowly empties, leaving mestrung between bon-voyages, like so many clotheson a line, the white handkerchiefstuck in my throat. You know the way Jesusrips open his shirtto show us his heart, all flaming and thorny,the way he points to it. I'm afraidthe way I'll miss you will be this obvious.I have a friend who everyone warns meis dangerous, he hidesbloody images of Jesusaround my house, for me to findwhen I come home; Jesusbehind the cupboard door, Jesus tuckedinto the mirror. He wants to save mebut we disagree from what. My version of hellis someone ripping open his shirtand saying, Look what I did for you.
    book-quote

  12. Nick Flynn _ Another Bullshit Night in Suck

    And though he knew it was only the whiskey talking, he also knew that the whiskey talked daily.
    book-quote
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