Joey Comeau

“Wait," I say. "Aren't soulmates supposed to be perfect? What if you find yours and shes not a virgin, not even a girl? What if he's a fixer upper? What if he has an STD?”

“It doesn't matter if the glass is half full or half empty. I am gonna drink it through this crazy straw.”

“Halfway through the televised debate I kick my boot into the screen. Even on mute I can't stand it. It feels good to smash the TV, though. I feel like I'm participating in the political system.”

“Having all the answers just means you've been asking boring questions.”

“I don't know what you believe in. I believe we just stop. Because if we move on to an afterlife, any kind of afterlife, that means there will be other people there. I'm tired of the chit chat. Oh, that is a handsome boy. He takes after his grandfather. Did they change the breakfast again? It tastes different to me.For Eternity? No thanks.”

“Live for today, you retarded little shit. The end is near.”

“Moderation is like a foreign language. You have to learn that shit when you're young.”

“We'll wake up every day and we'll tell ourselves, "Live for today, you retarded little shit. The end is near.”

“Memories are like everything else. They're a trap.”

“I'm not really like a cop at all. I haven't got any actual authority. If someone does show up to do anything bad, I am not allowed to touch them or interfere with them in anyway. I'm a scarecrow. I'm like one of those plastic owls that are supposed to scare away the pigeons, but that the pigeons shit all over.”

“Fuck politics. I just want to burn shit down.”

“I live to feel her fingers move inside of me like this. The busmakes another stop. A fat man climbs aboard, hauling himself up the stairs. I would kill him for one more moment with her fingers inside me. I don’t have to. She gives me my moment for free. He lives because of her generosity. We all live because of her generosity.”

“Hello, there should be more advice about dealing with depression when you're stupid and worthless, so here is a self help exercise.Today's assignment is simple. Just go out and get on the bus.It doesn't matter which bus. Whichever bus comes next. Get on, and just go. You could ride that bus to the very end, thank the driver, and then walk into the woods and just die. Just lay down right there and wait and wait until you were dead. Who is going to miss you?Really, think about it. If you went out to the middle of nowhere and just sat down in a ditch and cried by yourself until you were dead, who would be the first person to wonder where you'd gone?Call them up! Maybe they want to get ice cream?”

“Being in love is totally punk rock.”

“Kissing girls is easy, like breaking windows.”

“I think it would be cool if we wore suits while we committed these violent acts of retribution. Not fancy suits. No. Cheap suits that we won't mind ruining. Then if we're caught by the police, well, think how amazing we'll look! All bloody and torn and grizzled.Plus, suits look official. They would add an air of credibility to our campaign of blood drenched disproportionate responses.”

“She needs you, Dad," Julia says. "She has unfinished business in this world.""What is the matter with you?" Charlie asks his daughter. "Any sane person would have told me to go to the doctor. I'm seeing a headless apparition every day. Maybe my medications are conflicting. You should see the list of side effects on this stuff.”

“Dear Nintendo, We need a new Mario game, where you rescue the princess in the first ten minutes, and for the rest of the game you try and push down that sick feeling in your stomach that she’s ‘damaged goods’, a concept detailed again and again in the profoundly sex negative instruction booklet, and when Luigi makes a crack about her and Bowser, you break his nose and immediately regret it. When Peach asks you, in the quiet of her mushroom castle bedroom ‘do you still love me?’ you pretend to be asleep. You press the A button rhythmically, to control your breath, keep it even.”

“I love those dark moments in Peanuts. I love that they're in there, that Charles Schulz put the sad lonely bits of himself into the comic. I love the silliness too, the dancing Snoopy strips. The little boy Rerun drawing "basement" comics about Tarzan fighting Daffy Duck in a helicopter. Those are the bits that keep me reading. The funny parts! The fun parts. The silly bits that don't make any sense. And when I get to the sad lonely Peppermint Patty standing in a field wondering why nobody shook hands and said "good game," well, it works because that's not all she was. I try to think that way about everything. That's the kind of person I want to be.”

“I think the best life would be one that's lived off the grid. No bills, your name in no government databases. No real proof you're even who you say you are, aside from, you know, being who you say you are. I don't mean living in a mountain hut with solar power and drinking well water. I think nature's beautiful and all, but I don't have any desire to live in it. I need to live in a city. I need pay as you go cell phones in fake names, wireless access stolen or borrowed from coffee shops and people using old or no encryption on their home networks. Taking knife fighting classes on the weekend! Learning Cantonese and Hindi and how to pick locks. Getting all sorts of skills so that when your mind starts going, and you're a crazy raving bum, at least you're picking their pockets while raving in a foreign language at smug college kids on the street. At least you're always gonna be able to eat. ”

“Satellite images, maps and blueprints of the whole world, of every city. We could look it up and know what's there in someone else's words. Or we could get wicked drunk and just go.”

“There's something not quite Christian about it," Tony said. He sat back in his chair and looked up to where his Bible sat on the shelf. "I can't put my finger on why exactly, but it doesn't seem right for a couple of young ladies to be out there in the middle of the night, obsessing over their telescopes.”

“I feel the way bank robbers must feel before they go out on that last job that ends up getting them all killed. That is to say, optimistic.”