Quotes from Roman Payne

Learn to write well and you will walk on water and turn wine into opium. You will speak a thousand new tongues and talk to the gods. You will live in constant and everlasting euphoria.

He was no god, he was just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god.

I no longer feel the eternal sublime of magical time. I need my love for that ...for I am no god, I am just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god.

All that I ask out of life is that it be constant and unending euphoria. And so, I make love and I write.

I remember her body so miraculously Fumbling with me so delicately Fighting with me so passionately Exhausting us both so mercilessly Before sleeping beside me so languidly.

Womankind always seems to be able to see a dozen steps into the future, far ahead of what men are able to see. And they have strength where we do not!

Yes, in a woman, looks are the most important thing... But it's not how she looks 'to' us, so much as 'how she looks at' us.

I thought of the fifteen years I lived 'sans papiers' in France and how Paris had belonged to me. I was like a king in France. And now that suddenly I was French, Paris was gone for me. I had abdicated the throne the French people had given to me. All those people were gone. The whole city had changed. I left for five years: three spent wandering in Europe, while two years I spent living in Muslim Morocco; and now Paris had changed and there was no going back.

In my errant life, I roamed to learn the secrets of women and men, of gods and dreams.

When a Wanderess has been caged, Or perched with her wings clipped, She lives like a Stoic, and lives most heroic, When she smiles with moistened lip Since her cup of Death was welcome sipped.

Being the Novelist-in-Residence at a riad hotel in the kasbah of an Arabic North African city is a lot like trying to write one's memoirs on shreds of napkins in a nuthouse.

The novelist is condemned to wander all his life. Homeless and blind like Oedipus he wanders until death. And so let us protect the novelist and adore him, with pity, honor, and love.

From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent. It can only be squandered.

I care not that this moment's lot was thin and sparsely dealt all pleasures sweet can be forgot the instant they are felt.

Ah, youth!It was a beautiful night...The moon was out of orbit.The stars were awry.But everything else was exactlyas it should have been.

My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight.Her hands asleep beside her.Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth.I give her my lifefor our love is wholeI sing her beauty in my soul.

All that I desire in life are three...A wilderness: A beach on the sun-drenched sea, A puff of opium, And thee.

We made love outdoorsWithout a roof, I like most, Without stove, to make love, assuming the weather be fair and balmy, and the earth beneath be clean. Our souls intertwined and gushing of dew.

A writer needs to ingest love to be passionate. Passion is a metabolite of love, and good writing is an active metabolite of passion.

Everything was brighter and more colorful in those years, as if my childhood was ending in an explosion of unreal passion that made my life feel sacred and holy.

My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight.Her hands asleep beside her.Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth.I give her my troth, for our love is wholeI sing her beauty in my soul

I like the posture, but not the yoga. I like the inebriated morning, but not the opium. I like the flower but not the garden, the moment but not the dream. Quiet, my love. Be still. I am sleeping.

When a Wanderess has been caged, or perched with her wings clipped, She lives like a Stoic, She lives most heroic, smiling with ruby, moistened lips once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.

All that I ask out of life is that it be constant and unending euphoria.