Quotes from Ben Marcus

Bird speech at the circle of willis results in migrant noises or 'puddles' that amass near the head of the pedestrian, rallying it toward a form of disruption within the flowing crowd.

and he told a story once after intercourse, to the person who had just politely hoisted him while he hyperventilated in their space until his error had been registered as a small dollop of fluid he extruded from his mistake zone, ...

When men cough or talk into their own hands, they are praying to their own bones, hoping to change their minds about something.

Until the notion of Helmet-Assisted Life catches on with more people, you may be seen as a threat if you wear a helmet during moments of intimacy. Yet it might also be true that relaxed intimacy cannot occur unless the head is fully protected.

He had seemed daunting when I first saw him off the trail, hulking over the Jewish couple as if he might carve into their backs and eat them. Now

The word 'camouflage' simply means 'to have a family'.

Before, during, or after intercourse (the only three possible descriptions of time).

Breathing itself was considered the first language.

In the evening I spray my eyes with plant milk before retiring; this lubricates my blinking apparatus during sleep, throwing more light into my dreams, though I'm not much of a believer in the imagination.

If only my head were finally not my responsibility, could be put into someone else's care, could be made to merge with other persons and the world so that it would no longer suffer such distance and touchlessness, would no longer even be a head, because even when touched, there are parts of my head not being touched. Even underwater parts of my head feel dry.

identity compromises (relationships) may result...

Literature is fighting for its very life because compromise is mistook for ambition, and joining up is preferred to standing out …

The colleague, no doubt, was not a connoisseur of the self-punishment, sad to think. This type of hygiene was foreign to her, no doubt. How did one even fraternize with people who could not entertain vivid scenarios of self-mutilation? How was the sexual act even possible if one's partner could not entertain being crushed under a truck, even as a cathartic exercise?

Loud people have thin, hollow bones. They can be broken in half and discarded into a pit. They snap as easily as children do, but they will not burn as long in a fire. If a loud person tries to store his voice in a jar, he will not be able to, unless the jar is a mouth worn on the face of someone in his family, which he must prize open with his fingers while shouting deep into the hole there.

Slamming the book shut produces a wind on the face, a weather that is copyrighted by the author, and this wind may not be deployed without permission, nor may the pages be turned without express written permission.

This first. To understand this. Then maybe." Julian was impressed. The doctor had devised a pretty good tombstone. This first. To understand this. Then maybe.

In Germany, they treated you with yourself. You were guilty of hiding you own cure inside of you, you selfish fuck.

There would not be an empty room without windows in a perfect world. In a perfect world, nothing would have happened yet. Everything would go without saying. All of the sayings would be given.

You killed my man, I thought. He died alone. You should die by thunder. You should be killed in a loud sky. Let your house break in half and the people inside it be pulled into the sky. Let you faint at night.

One day, supposedly, a Kind Friend could give them what they needed, and clean up after, and possibly even flush the shame from their systems as well. But for the time being they still had to endure the company of other fleshy need machines, human spouters and little bags of weepery.

Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? How about this: I lost without the love. I've lost things I've never even had. A whole life.

Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of unknowability.

Being with him was like being alone underwater - everything was slow; nothing counted; I could not be harmed; I would feel dry and cold when I resurfaced.

In certain strains of Judaism, there's a profound passion for the ineffable. Contemplation of God is meant to be forever elusive, because, you know, our tiny minds can't possibly comprehend Him. If we find ourselves comprehending Him, then we can be sure we're off track.