Ascending Peculiarity Quotes

“My mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible. I think we should all be as uneasy as possible, because that's what the world is like.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“When people are finding meaning in things - beware.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“What is, is, and what might have been could never have existed.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“Interviewer: What is your greatest regret?
Gorey: That I don't have one”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“If something doesn't creep into a drawing that you're not prepared for, you might as well not have drawn it.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I've never had any intentions about anything. That's why I am where I am today, which is neither here nor there, in a literal sense.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“Explaining something makes it go away, so to speak; what's important is left after you have explained everything else.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I don't know what it is I'm doing. But it's not that. Despite all evidence to the contrary.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“...my least favorite actress of all time, Helena Bonham Carter. I find her lack of a neck very off-putting and especially her acting.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“. . . I just don't think humanity is the ultimate end. We're so smug about ourselves, secure about how much we know. Well, I've lived with cats most of my life, so I'm very aware that there's another world going on. . . . it sees everything differently, hears everything differently, and probably thinks differently.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I suppose it was obvious that The Loathsome Couple was based on the Moors Murders, which disturbed me very greatly for some reason.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“. . . when I talk to people I really like to talk to them, and not just exchange pleasantries and wonder which of us is going to try to get away first. Most social occasions leave me less than enthralled.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I realize that homosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is—but then, of course, heterosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is, too. And being a man is a serious problem and being a woman is, too. Lots of things are problems.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“More and more, I think you should have no expectations and do everything for its own sake. That way you won't be hit in the head quite so frequently.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“As someone once said, originality is not taking from somebody else. It's when nobody can take it from you and repeat it.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“We spend all our lives trying to avoid reality in one way or another. I've always had a rather strong sense of unreality. I feel other people exist in a way I don't.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I do like rocks. I had a terrible trauma this week: I didn't know what had become of my favorite rock. And I thought, Oh my God, I can't live. Fortunately, it was found.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I thought I was in love a couple of times, but I rather think it was only infatuation. It bothered me briefly, but I always got over it. I mean, for a while I'd think, after some perfectly pointless involvement that was far more trouble than it was worth- I'd think, 'Oh God, I hope I don't get infatuated with anybody every again.' And it's been sixteen, seventeen years, so I think I'm safe. I realized I was accident-prone in that direction anyway, so the hell with it. Cats have the same sort of nuisance value, so to speak. They occupy me.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“Most people who have cats would not put up with what I put up with from my cats... You know- clawed furniture, cats who pee all over the place, and everything. But I feel it's their house as much as mine. What I do like about them is since they don't talk, that's sort of a plus. And they really are very mysterious. It's impossible to know what's going on in their tiny noggins. It's very interesting sharing a house with a group of people who obviously see things, hear things, think about things in vastly different ways.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I look like a real person, but underneath I am not real at all. It's just a fake persona. That's why cats are so wonderful. They can't talk. They have these mysterious lives that are only half-connected to you. We have no idea what goes on in their tiny minds.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“Q: What are your sexual preferences?
A: Well, I'm neither one thing nor the other particularly.
Q: Why not?
A: I am fortunate in that I am apparently reasonably undersexed or something. I know people who lead really outrageous lives. I've never said that I was gay and I've never said that I wasn't. A lot of people would say that I wasn't because I never do anything about it. What I'm trying to say is that I am a person before I am anything else.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“Indoor cats don't lose their wildness, which is one reason I am so fascinated by them. They seem to retain all their jungly qualities no matter what.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“A situation comes up, and either you do this or that, or maybe a third alternative comes up. But you simply do not choose. You never really choose anything. It's all presented to you, and then you have alternatives.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I think if you have to think about anything very long, you've obviously done yourself an injury, as it were.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I think there should be a little bit of uneasiness in everything, because I do think we're all really in a sense living on the edge. So much of life is inexplicable. . . . The things that happen to you are usually the things that you haven't thought of or that come absolutely out of nowhere. And all you can do is cope with them when they turn up.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“...he details everything around the beauty and excitement, which is enough to evoke it again for each of us, in the mind's eye, the gut, the secret heart, or wherever one's most vivid, passionate, lyric, and lavender images are stored. - Tobi Tobias, "Balletgorey”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“. . . every now and then I do think life is a crock, there's no getting around it. Basically, it's really just awful. I do think it's stupidity that makes the world go round. And if you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“What obsesses me more than anything in the world . . . is why some things happen and why other things don't. It doesn't seem to me there is any logic, any way of . . . you know . . .”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“I always feel that other people's lives are filled with meaning. You look at them on the street and think how real their lives must be. Of course, you also know that isn't true.”
― Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey