Quotes from Gene Doucette

The advent of civilization--an overly optimistic word--didn't change things as much as one might think, because no matter how large a city or empire became there was always another them to go out and kill. And when organized religion really got going... well, there's a fantastic excuse to murder people in bunches.

but still; if I'm at the center of your religion, something has gone horribly wrong with your religion.) 

D]espite the patina of civility coating most of modern society, underneath it is a thick layer of savagery.

The biblical Goliath was also a demon, which should tell you plenty about the accuracy of that little story, because it'd take a hell of a lot more than a stupid slingshot to take out a demon. (David actually lured Goliath under a cliff face and had some friends drop a big rock on him.)

It's how I figured out what you're actually facing.  But before I prove I'm actually useful here, why don't you tell me why the man who used it has to die?

So, what do I call you? I asked. Whomp. Whomp? Your given name? It's the sound people make when I hit them in the chest.

W]e took turns removing each other's underwear and I thanked God for twenty-first century clothing. Until you've attempted to undress a Victorian era noblewoman, you can't possibly understand how wonderful a simple pair of cotton briefs is.

Like just about everything else conjured up in the past century, the underground subway system of the modern city is an unfathomable engineering miracle covered in several inches of filth, urine, and spray paint. Despite being a certified member of the human race, I'll never fully understand why miracles of this magnitude are treated so casually.

T]here may be no more depressing place on the planet than the floor of a casino.

Religion is still the very best way to get someone to accept something unabashedly ridiculous.

I was suicidal for two solid centuries once. That was during the early part of what they now call the Dark Ages, in medieval Europe. Suicidal tendencies were de rigueur at the time, and I'm nothing if not trendy.

Impending death makes one run faster. I think that's probably why they fire a gun before track meets.

Morning conversations should be between very close friends or lovers, and otherwise avoided entirely.

Like most remarkable things, nobody realized it was remarkable as it happened.

while there may have been gods, they weren't particularly well defined. If, for instance, something unusually lucky happened, one might declare that a god--pick one--was feeling generous that day. And if a particularly bad thing happened, a god (usually a different one) was upset about something or other. Gods, in other words, were what most of us would now call chance or luck. And in that sense they served their purpose, by making a random existence seem less random.

Karyos's people adopted an ingenious, if somewhat perplexing attitude that life was a circle. Not like Disney's circle of life thing, which was really just a nice way to say, "death is normal, children, so suck it up.

To ward off these disasters, they spent a whole lot of time trying to keep their gods happy via a number of complex rituals, many involving copious amounts of sex ("the gods wish us to have sex" is the oldest pickup line in the world).

The thing is, we all have a little animal in us, and if you ask us to, we can do a very good job of behaving like one.

I know in another decade or two I'm going to have to get used to the idea of reading without paper in my hands, but I'm going to be making that trip kicking and screaming. Maybe that sounds stubborn, but my relationship with the printed word is the longest one I've ever had and I'm not ready to quit on it yet.

Religious fanatics are the worst. They're basically impossible to bargain with, they accept no outside opinion about anything, and they departed from reality well before you met them.

I'm a pretty sad example of what one should do with eternal life. I've never reached any higher level of consciousness, I don't have access to any great truths, and I've never borne witness to the divine or transcendent. Some of this is just bad luck. Like working in the fishing industry in Galilee and never once running into Jesus.

T]he truth is the percentage of vampires that are also evil killers is about the same as the percentage of normal people who are also evil killers.

New York is the one place in the world that actively encourages rudeness, because that's the only way to get past the fake bag carriers, homeless people, newspaper thieves, Jesus freaks, and everyone else who wants something and isn't afraid to ask for it, repeatedly, at close range.

As a side note: I thought money was a bad idea way back when it was first invented. I remember the moment very clearly. This guy owed me a sheep, but instead of giving me an actual sheep he gave me five coins he said were worth the same as a sheep. "But I can't eat round pieces of metal, asshole," were my exact words.)