When Gravity Fails Quotes

“I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked awful, but I always look awful in the mirror. I keep myself going with the firm belief that my real face is much better looking.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can’t do it. It’s not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven’t you ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it’s reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“It was a good thing I wasn’t afraid, because I was scared stiff.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“if I examine myself closely enough, I find hints of every objectionable quality known to man.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“Drugs are your friends, treat them with respect. You wouldn’t throw your friends in the garbage. You wouldn’t flush your friends down the toilet. If that’s the way you treat your friends or your drugs, you don’t deserve to have either. Give them to me. Drugs are wonderful things. I won’t listen to anybody trying to get me to give them up. I’d rather give up food and drink—in fact, on occasion, I have.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“I closed my eyes and wished I believed in something enough to pray to it.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“If I have to go into that good night, I'm goin' gentle; the hell with whoever said not to. That sucker's dead, man, so what did he know? Not even the courage of his convictions.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“After sex, all animals are sad; after any kind of pleasure, really. We’re not built for pleasure. We’re built for agony and for seeing things too clearly, which is often a terrible agony in itself. I loathed myself then, and I loathed myself now. Dr.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“The two women looked at me as if I were the Messiah returning with their personal salvations sealed in separate envelopes.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“I don't carry a weapon, Mr. Bogatyrev. Not usually. I've never been in a situation where I needed one. Either the other guy has one, and I do what he says, or he doesn't, and I make him do what I say.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“Drugs are your friends, treat them with respect. You wouldn’t throw your friends in the garbage. You wouldn’t flush your friends down the toilet. If that’s the way you treat your friends or your drugs, you don’t deserve to have either. Give them to me.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“I rolled over and faced the cracked green wall. I regretted that simple action immediately; it had felt like a slow-motion film with every other frame missing.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them. The”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“The police don’t enforce laws; they don’t even get busy until after the laws are broken. They solve crimes at a pitifully low rate of success. What the police are, to be honest, is a kind of secretarial pool that records the names of the victims”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“it is the nature of religions to put a higher premium on your proper attention to ritual than on your convenience.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“This nigger girl scared for white bwana.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“She would have made a great lizard, basking on a hot rock in the sun.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“Just ’cause the cat had her kittens in the oven don’t make them biscuits.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“The most frequent expression in the Muslim world is inshallah, if God wills. It removes all guilt: blame it on Allah. If the oasis dries up and blows away, it was Allah’s will. If you get caught sleeping with your brother’s wife, it was Allah’s will. Getting your hand or your cock or your head chopped off in reprisal is Allah’s will, too.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails

“The information I got from one person often contradicted the version I heard from another, so I’d long ago gotten into the habit of trying to hear as many different stories as I could and averaging them all out.”
― George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails