Quotes from Tim Dorsey

What gripes me the most is all the garbage they give us Cubans. All of that 'Oh my God, we're being overrun by rafters!' Hell, we've worked hard to help build Key West and Tampa and Miami," said Serge. "Forget the Marielitos. What about the Ohio-litos?!

We may have just slipped through some kind of white-trash worm-hole in the time-space continuum.

Near the end they give you morphine. I'm looking forward to that." Serge turned another page. "You might want to bottle some of that excess ambition for the afterlife.

Use sunscreen; don't do heroin.' . . . If you could give the entire human race only one sentence of advice, I think you've just nailed it.

And another item from the growing file of people who voluntarily wear dunce caps," said Serge. "You'll be talking cordially to someone and make an offhand reference, 'I recently read where—' and they'll cut you off and say, 'Oh, I don't read' . . . This is a tragedy on so many different levels. First, because they don't read, they don't know enough to keep it to themselves.

Most Floridians understand the danger of leaving children or pets in cars with the windows rolled up, where midday temperatures can reach a hundred and fifty degrees or more. But few give a second thought to cheap, throwaway lighters, which are butane under pressure and can easily explode at those temperatures, spraying flammable liquid all over the interior…

Boys can't be stewardesses, and girls can't be pilots.

I liked how the coyote could get whatever he wanted from the Acme company," said Coleman. "That was the best part," said Serge. "Anvils, foot springs, hot-air balloons, giant magnets .

Teresa had been such a marvelous child the previous school year, before the incest had started that summer.

country today. No manners." Serge unscrewed a thermos of coffee. "People used to hang out and actually communicate. But today they head to the mall and sit together at the Yogurt A Go-Go in their own separate spheres of mobile devices." "What's wrong with that?" "It's destroying the art of conversation!" said Serge. "I love conversations!

Remember Advent calendars?" "Can't place it." "That means you weren't Catholic," said Serge. "We'd get these cool cardboard calendars that marked off the days to Christmas, and each day you'd open a little perforated window and get a piece of chocolate. There was a lot of bribery in the Catholic Church.

Relieve stress through hysterical screaming.

I don't suffer from insanity. I can actually say that I enjoy it.

But you have to understand, mental illness is like cholesterol. There is is good kind and the bad. Without the good kind- less flavor to life. Van Gogh, Beethoven, Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath, Pink Floyd (the early Piper at the Gates of Dawn line up), scientific breakthroughs, spiritual revolution, utopian visions, zany nationalism that kills millions- wait, that's the bad kind. Tim Dorsey (Hurricane Punch)

The whole family is a bunch of dangerous freaks...Most are ex-cons or junkies or deranged from inbreeding. Five have died violently, three are back in prison, two have gone insane from untreated venereal disease, and one writes book reviews.

Murder is such a charged word. You know how some people fixate and won't let things go? They're called cops.

A prosthetic leg with a Willie Nelson bumper sticker washed ashore on the beach, which meant it was Florida. Then it got weird.

We're all damaged. It's a universal component of the human condition, like the stages of grief, deja vu, and expired coupons.

Always walk away from a fight. Then ambush.

Nothing builds confidence like live ammo.

Serge's attention-deficit disorder was the first of many hyphens. Obsessive-compulsive, manic-depressive, anal-retentive, paranoid-schizophrenic. He was believed to be the only self-inflicted case of shaken-baby syndrome.

Belong to a religion? Doesn't bother me if you do, as long as it's not one that says to stop thinking and be loud about it.

Look forward to the wonderment of growing up, raising a family and driving by the gas station where the popular kids now work.

That, and the untended mental health problems. We have all these insane armed hobos coming from the Midwest, usually Ohio. Fuck Ohio.