Carl-John X. Veraja Quotes & Sayings

Once you learn to take the pain of admitting to yourself you were fooled, you increasingly become ready to take the pain to those that fooled you. — Carl-John X. Veraja

There is a lovely feature of the American psyche which rejects the notion that there are victims. In America, attitude is a magical elixir that cures everything. People are supposed to believe that they create their realities, and are solely responsible for every aspect of their lives. Everything is because of a choice you made somewhere. Somehow, you were supposed to not only be equipped to make the right choice at all times, despite your circumstances, but to know exactly what the outcome of every choice you made would be. This is all very convenient for the people at the top of our economic system with all the money and the power. Keeps the rest of us trying. — Carl-John X. Veraja

The world has PTSD. It is a veteran with a blown mind, having flashbacks as it begs the Sun for one more go-round. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Porn: the only unconditional love in the world. — Carl-John X. Veraja

I'd heard theories. Destruction of forests had altered pressure zones. Global warming made for stronger storms. Chemtrails indicated government manipulation of the weather. God punished the family and neighbors of idolaters. — Carl-John X. Veraja

When I turned and looked at Emily she looked like a composite of all the women who would have nothing to do with me. — Carl-John X. Veraja

We wouldn't have to take your rights away if you'd just stop exercising them. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Socialism is the way, the truth, and the light. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Karma runs backwards. You suffer so that the violation becomes unavoidable. Your money is no good here. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Reality is symbolic
of an unseen insanity — Carl-John X. Veraja

I felt something I had never felt before, a mixture of fear and pride. I liked it. This was fatherhood. The biggest mistake anyone could make, and yet universally accepted. I had arrived. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Jesus would pray to himself and cry. I often do the same. — Carl-John X. Veraja

If you stand up for your rights you'll be criticized, put through the ringer, dragged into court, arrested, pepper sprayed, sucked into an overcomplicated, Rube Goldberg bureaucracy the mistakes of which become your mistakes and which will drive you insane with stress. Wouldn't you rather be providing service with a smile? — Carl-John X. Veraja

If everyone stopped pretending
capitalism would drop dead — Carl-John X. Veraja

Karma works in reverse. You suffer so that you have to commit the crime. — Carl-John X. Veraja

To each his own reality. — Carl-John X. Veraja

If philosophy is mountain climbing
then literature is an anti-gravity parade
I love thee like a leper colony
loves to make a trade — Carl-John X. Veraja

Set you free? The truth can get you locked up. The truth can get you force medicated. The truth can set you on fire. — Carl-John X. Veraja

The next day we were all shooting up.
"Jeez. Look at the size of the cotton he just threw in the spoon."
"Yea. What are you trying to prove?"
They had a good laugh at my expense. — Carl-John X. Veraja

My loss of faith in God had, after all, neatly coincided with the beginning of my drug use when I was 15. Perhaps this could be the means by which I restored myself in the sight of God and the world. Besides which, I had often heard how the only other people who recovered from alcoholism were those who recovered through the churches. AA didn't seem to be all there. I had to take it deeper, disregarding the intellect entirely. — Carl-John X. Veraja

People tell me I'm a misanthrope just because I hate all mankind. — Carl-John X. Veraja

It was clearly the Native American curse on the white man in action. After taking their land and converting everything that was holy and good into money, the white man became aged and foolish and then gambled all that money away at Native American casinos. The power of this magic was indisputable and in evidence all around me. Senior citizens chain smoked and dumped money into the machines, staring with eyes that only reacted to the prospect of making a buck from risk and self-destruction. Especially if this were enhanced by the notion of a fate that had their interests in mind in a way loosely connected to their Christian God who usually took their side in racial relations, if history were to be a judge. — Carl-John X. Veraja

After considering the source long enough they decided it was correct because it was so fucked up. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Reality is a life sentence. — Carl-John X. Veraja

As I was fixing in the bathroom, I thought about how I used to tell my ex Anne that there was "no reality." Light merely entered the eye and was translated into electrical signals which were translated into chemical signals translated into gestalts and translated into electrical signals again and so on. It was all a dream of a dream of a dream signifying a source which could be reality of which we experienced only distant modulated echoes of ripples.This used to really annoy her because she suspected it had something to do with my failure to get a job. — Carl-John X. Veraja

In the name of a god who was always a ghost — Carl-John X. Veraja

I look to the skies
and expect artificial passenger pigeons,
blackening the light,
people taking potshots for kicks
imagining one day they will be extinct. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Love was like walking on the moon. A springy step in your heel like you had a heart for cushioning to step on until it burst and the blood floating in red pods among the glowing craters to be boiled into a refining mist in the naked, eternal sunlight. — Carl-John X. Veraja