Andrew Davidson Quotes & Sayings

Defeat itself is defeated by the embrace of defeat, and death is swallowed up in victory. — Andrew Davidson

My first, and most lasting, addiction has always been to the obsessive study of any matter that took hold of my curiosity. — Andrew Davidson

Didn't anyone ever tell you that the mouth is the front gate of all misfortune? — Andrew Davidson

But the truth is that I dislike most men as much as I dislike women. If anything, I am an equal opportunity misanthropist. — Andrew Davidson

Perhaps there are just some things you leave behind when you choose a new life. — Andrew Davidson

What is it like to wear another person's skin?"
"I don't have a good answer for that," I said. "It hurts."
"Can you remember their stories? Can you feel the love that they felt? — Andrew Davidson

I could hear the hiss of various gases escaping the engine and the tires still spinning outside, above, and there was the creak of metal settling as the car stopped rocking, a pathetic turtle on its back. — Andrew Davidson

It's not easy to look the way I do: in popular culture, one only sees a face like mine on the Phaontom of the Opera, on Freddie Krueger from Elm Street, or on Leatherface from deep in the heart of Texas. Sure, a burn victim may "get the girl" - but usually only with a pickax. — Andrew Davidson

As in any proper fairy tale, there's a majick formula, in this case called the Rule of Nines. — Andrew Davidson

Every Good Friday, this anchored but ever-changing anniversary of my accident, I go to the little creek that saved my life and light one more candle. I offer thanks for two facts: that I am one year older, and that I am one year closer to death. — Andrew Davidson

You are mine,I am yours; you may be sure of this. You've been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay. — Andrew Davidson

Any man who believes he can describe love', I answered, 'understands nothing about it. — Andrew Davidson

Everything burns if the flame is hot enough. The world is nothing but a crucible. — Andrew Davidson

There is no logical reason to believe in God. There are emotional reasons, certainly, but I cannot have faith that nothing is something simply because it would be reassuring. I can no more believe in God than I can believe an invisible monkey lives in my ass; however, I would believe in both if they could be scientifically proven. — Andrew Davidson

As the paramedics lifted her, my grandmother's corpulent arms swung like bat wings with the life squeezed out of them. — Andrew Davidson

This will mark the third time that an arrow has entered my chest. The first time brought me to Marianne Engel. The second time separated us.
The third time will reunite us. — Andrew Davidson

These day's I like to imagine that if a man were to enter through the slash on the book's cover, as if it were a door, he could walk right into the heart of the Inferno. — Andrew Davidson

He recoils at the sight of me. Are they suppose to do that? — Andrew Davidson

I am more than my scars. — Andrew Davidson

your mind becomes a supercomputer capable of calculating the gyrations of your car, multiplying that by the speed of the fall over the angle of descent, factoring in Newton's laws of motion and, in a split second, coming to the panicked conclusion that this is gonna hurt like hell. — Andrew Davidson

I envy all suffering, because suffering is necessary to become spiritually beautiful. — Andrew Davidson

Love is an action you must repeat ceaselessly. — Andrew Davidson

You'll swoop from incredible highs when you're just glad to be alive, to those lows when you wish you were dead. And just when you start thinking that you've accepted who you are, that changes, too. Because who you are is not permanent — Andrew Davidson

Talking with the mouth of a beast won't ease your pain. — Andrew Davidson

Morphine is like a religious zealot on a mission; it searches for body parts to convert, offering milk-and-honeyed dreams to flow sluggishly through your veins. — Andrew Davidson

How deep was the grim sorter of the dark and the foul going to send me? — Andrew Davidson

If you're going through hell, keep going
[as stolen from Winston S. Churchill] — Andrew Davidson

That which abides the fire shall become clean. The water of separation shall purify. The Lord is a consuming fire. That which can't abide the fire shall go through water. — Andrew Davidson

Scatology was strictly out, as nowhere in my psyche do I harbor the desire to shit on someone and even less do I have the inclination to be shat upon. And if I a a snob for not participating in films that involve sex with animals, then so be it; I am a snob. — Andrew Davidson

I once knew a woman who liked to imagine Love in the guise of a sturdy dog, one that would always chase down the stick after it was thrown and return with his ears flopping around happily. Completely loyal, completely unconditional. And I laughed at her, because even I knew that love is not like that. Love is a delicate thing that needs to be cosseted and protected. Love is not robust and love is not unyeilding. Love can crumble under a few harsh words, or be tossed away with a handful of careless actions. Love isn't a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur. — Andrew Davidson

Who would have guessed that the monster of fraud was a democracy? — Andrew Davidson

The problem with people like us is that we don't die properly. — Andrew Davidson

My skin will never work like that again, so aware of the other person that I'm unsure where she ends and I begin. Never again. Never again will my skin be a thing that can so perfectly communicate; in losing my skin to the fire, I also lost the opportunity to make it disappear with another person. — Andrew Davidson

Don't be wasting your sympathy on me, kid. I did pretty damn well, I'll tell you what. You snag a woman like that, you don't ask what you did to deserve it. You just hope she never wises up and changes her mind. — Andrew Davidson

Everyone's past, I try to rationalize, is nothing more than the collection of memories they choose to remember. — Andrew Davidson

My words were Egyptian hieroglyphics before the discovery of the Rosetta stone; my words were wounded soldiers limping home, guns spent, from a lost battle; my words were dying fish, flipping hysterically as the net is opened and the pile spreads across the boat deck like a slippery mountain trying to become a prairie.
My words were, and are, unworthy of Marianne Engel. — Andrew Davidson

She had what I'd call a lemming ass - that is, an ass that you would follow right over the edge of the cliff. — Andrew Davidson

There's the smell of the devil's mischievousness, a pitchfork in your ass and sulfur in your mouth. The Bastard's there, all right, don't doubt it. — Andrew Davidson

When I answered that I did not pray, he sternly rebuked me. "You're in Hell. You'd better start". — Andrew Davidson

I have no idea whether beginning with my accident was the best decision, as I've never written a book before. Truth be told, I started with the crash because I wanted to catch your interest and drag you into the story. You're still reading, so it seems to have worked. — Andrew Davidson

Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, often violently, just like love. — Andrew Davidson

There I lay, wearing dead people as armor against death. — Andrew Davidson

Coincidentally, a good age for a Japanese girl is younger than twenty five, because that's when she turns into a 'Christmas Cake'. Christmas cakes, as everyone knows, are desirable before the twenty fifth but afterward quickly become stale and are put on the shelf. — Andrew Davidson

God cannot be referred to as 'good,' 'better,' or 'best' because He is above all things. If a man says that God is wise, the man is lying because anything that is wise can become wiser. Anything that a man might say about God is incorrect ... The best a man can do is to remain silent ... The true master knows that if he had a God he could understand, he would never hold Him to be God. — Andrew Davidson

That kind of love was a thing to be snatched up and crushed in the jaws of real life. — Andrew Davidson

It doesn't matter how fast you move, if you never go anywhere. — Andrew Davidson

She worked diligently to develop her understanding of breath; for she knew that with breath she could create a world. She imagined herself breathing life into the glass and, with every week that passed, Sei came closer to realizing the loveliness of the objects that she could picture in her imagination. — Andrew Davidson

With every fragment of rock that fall from me, I can hear the voice of Marianne Engle. I love you. Aishiteru. Ego amo te. Ti amo. Eg elska pig. Ich liebe dich. It is moving across time, coming to me in every language of the world, and it sounds like pure love. — Andrew Davidson

The urge is always with me to retouch yesterday's canvas with today's paintbrush and cover the things that fill me with regret.. — Andrew Davidson

The burn unit is often the most distant wing of a hospital, because burn victims are so susceptible to infection that they must be kept away from other patients. More important, perhaps, is that the placement minimizes the chance of visitors stumbling across a Kentucky Fried Human. — Andrew Davidson

I am not a hero in soul and never will be, but I am better than I was before. Or so I tell myself; and for now that is enough. — Andrew Davidson

You're scared and I understand that. I know it's difficult because you want to imagine the ending but you can't even imagine the beginning. But everything will be ok. It just takes time. — Andrew Davidson

He was evidently a most captivating good-time Charlie, quick with his dick and quicker to split. — Andrew Davidson

Some day soon," Lance said, "you'll walk out of here and have to decide how you're going to live the rest of your lives. Will you be defined by what other people see, or by the essence of your soul? — Andrew Davidson

All history is just one man trying to take something away from another man, and usually it doesn't really belong to either of them. — Andrew Davidson

It doesn't matter how fast you move, I learned, if you never go anywhere. — Andrew Davidson

I understand that some people find God after misfortune, although this seems to me even more ridiculous than finding Him in good times. 'God smote me. He must love me.' It's like not wanting a romantic relationship until a member of the opposite sex punches you in the face. My 'miraculous survival' will not change my opinion that Heaven is an idea constructed by man to help him cope with the fact that life on earth is both brutally short, and paradoxically, far too long. — Andrew Davidson

Boredom was my bedmate and it was hogging the sheets. — Andrew Davidson

Things should be judged by distance traveled rather than by current position. — Andrew Davidson

The doctors removed my wasteland exterior by debriding me, scraping away the charred flesh. they brought in tanks of liquid nitrogen containing skin recently harvested from corpses. The sheets were thawed in pans of water, then neatly arranged on my back and stapled into place. Just like that, as if they were laying strips of sod over the problem areas behind their summer cabins, they wrapped me in the skin of the dead. My body was cleaned constantly but I rejected these sheets of necro-flesh anyway; I've never played well with others. So over and over again, I was sheeted with cadaver skin. — Andrew Davidson

It was not long before I discovered that withdrawing addicts lost their composure in exactly the same manner that careless millionaires lose their money: gradually, then suddenly. — Andrew Davidson

Just as I was beginning my drift into unconsciousness, there was an explosion. Not a movie explosion but a small real-life explosion, like the ignition of an unhappy gas oven that holds a grudge against its owner. — Andrew Davidson

If you listen to the wind very carefully, you'll be able to hear me whisper my love for you. — Andrew Davidson

Only a man unable to handle the actual world would create another one in which to hide. — Andrew Davidson

I spent my entire life waiting for you, Marianne, and I didn't even know it until you arrived. Being burned was the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought you. I wanted to die but you filled me with so much love that it overflowed and I couldn't help but love you back. It happened before I even knew it and now I can't imagine not loving you. You have said that it takes so much for me to believe anything, but I do believe. I believe in your love for me. I believe in my love for you. I believe that every remaining beat of my heart belongs to you, and I believe that when I finally leave this world, my last breath will carry your name. I believe that my final word
Marianne
will be all I need to know that my life was good and full and worthy, and I believe that our love will last forever. — Andrew Davidson

She says the problem with most Christians is that they show up once a week to pray that God's will be done- and when it is, they complain. — Andrew Davidson

Love isn't a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur. Yes, that's exactly what love is: a tiny, jittery primate with eyes that are permanently peeled open in fear. For those of you who cannot quite picture a pygmy mouse lemur, imagine a miniature Don Knotts or Steve Buscemi wearing a fur coat. — Andrew Davidson

Coffin,why no lid? Too antiseptic for Hell, and could the roof of heaven really be made of gray metal? — Andrew Davidson

How could I protect myself? I had the Viking's scabbard, but not the sword; I had the Buddhist's robe, but not the faith. — Andrew Davidson

Following my accident, I plumped up like a freshly roasted wiener, my skin cracking to accommodate the expanding meat. The doctors, with their hungry scalpels, hastened the process with a few quick slices. The procedure is called an escharotomy, and it gives the swelling tissue the freedom to expand. It's rather like the uprising of your secret inner being, finally given license to claw through the surface. The doctors thought they had sliced me open to commence my healing but, in fact, they only release the monster- a thing of engorged flesh, suffused with juice. — Andrew Davidson

Hell is a choice because salvation is available to anyone who seeks it. — Andrew Davidson

So when you didn't mention marriage again I assumed that you had been talking idly, the way men do when they're feeling romantic. — Andrew Davidson

My flesh began to singe as if I were a scrap of meat newly thrown onto the barbecue, and then i could hear the bubbling of my skin as the flames kissed it. — Andrew Davidson

If you cannot love the pain, you can at least love the lessons it teaches — Andrew Davidson

That which is painful sharpens one's love. — Andrew Davidson

There was a brief moment of weightlesssness: a balancing point between air and earth, dirt and heaven. How strange, I thought, how like the moment between sleeping and falling when everything is beautifully surreal and nothing is corporeal. How like floating towards completion. But as often happens in that time between existing in the world and fading into dreams, this moment over the edge ended with the ruthless jerk back to awareness. — Andrew Davidson

Christ, I'm in Hell and they wear uniforms. — Andrew Davidson

While it is true that outside the library I have lived a life of wickedness, inside it I've always been as devoted to knowledge as a saint to his Bible. — Andrew Davidson

Vanity is both a great motivator and a great deceiver. — Andrew Davidson

... She kissed me on my thin lips and all my words were pushed back into my mouth.
"I don't want to die," she whispered, "but I need to lose the shackles of this multitude of hearts. — Andrew Davidson

The serpent tries to engulf my head. No, not a snake, an oxygen mask. — Andrew Davidson

Personally, I believe it's a poor idea to tell a seven-year-old girl that God's tremendous plan is to incinerate her lungs. — Andrew Davidson

Titivillus was a tricky little bastard. Despite the scribe's best intentions, the work itself was repetitive and boring. The mind would wander and mistakes would be made. It was the duty of Titivillus to fill his sack a thousand times each day with manuscript errors. These were hauled to Satan, where they would be recorded in The Book of Errors and used against the scribe on Judgment Day. Thus, the work of copying came with a risk to the scribe: while properly transcribed words were positive marks, incorrectly transcribed words were negative marks. — Andrew Davidson

I do not believe," whispered Father Sunder, "in any God that considers love to be a sin. — Andrew Davidson

This is the truth: we all desire to conquer the comely one, because it affirms our own worth. Speaking for the men of the world, we want to own the beauty of the woman we're fucking. We want to grasp that beauty, tightly in our greedy little fingers, to well and truly possess it, to make it ours. We want to do this as the woman shines her way through an orgasm. That's perfection. And while I can't speak for women, I imagine that they-whether they admit it or not-want the same thing: to possess the man, to own his rough handsomeness, if only for a few seconds. — Andrew Davidson