Douglas Clegg Quotes & Sayings

love can be the most enthralling of demons. 3 — Douglas Clegg

Frailty and cruelty are our gifts to the world. Who is to say that suffering is not the greatest of all gifts from the gods? — Douglas Clegg

It was said that Mrs. Campusky's ovaries were like popcorn poppers and the desert heat kept her puffing up with a never-ending pregnancy. — Douglas Clegg

the one of insane geometries, of orange lightning, of fire that rained from trees like leaves falling, of the birds rising from the water their impossibly pure white wings spreading across the burning sky. As — Douglas Clegg

What was unspeakable found voice and its bleating froze the air for a moment hacked from the fabric of time as the secret of all stabbed at his ears. — Douglas Clegg

Mommy loves me I know. Mommy loves me I know. I know Mommy loves me. I am scared of her. A — Douglas Clegg

Pain is a ritual we all must endure." 2 — Douglas Clegg

Death is not the end of things, my sister. It is the beginning of a greater adventure than this small life you cherish can hold. And beyond these shores of death, there are great ships that fly from the golden seas to the skies of pearl. — Douglas Clegg

Death is a gift, so long as it is nature's hand. — Douglas Clegg

You know we got two lives, sometimes more. I don't mean like reincarnation, I mean like we have our life of innocence and then it rams right into the real life. The life where innocence is just a mirror - looks nice, reflects a lot, but it ain't the real thing. I — Douglas Clegg

There is more terror in a day of life than there is at the moment of death. It is as if a door has opened to a prison, though you do not believe it is a prison while you exist within it. — Douglas Clegg

Nothing within the limits of the human imagination and mind is impossible. If it were, we could not imagine it or dream it. — Douglas Clegg

Of the things that are man's achievements, the greatest is suffering. — Douglas Clegg

1. YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS
Youth is a cliff. You leap, and repair the broken bones later.
When you're older, you draw the map, retrace your steps and find the cliff's edge again to wonder:
Would anyone ever jump if they knew how far down it went?
I jumped, once.
I'm broken in unseen places. — Douglas Clegg

Old Marsh wore a look of sorrow upon his face. You called him, miss. You called him. You must send him back now. You must send him back. He won't be the brother you remember. It ain't his spirit comes back. I told you that. It's the soul of death comes back, that's what it is, miss. The soul of death in disguise like your brother. Only the one who called him can send him back. I saw the bird in the cellars, in the bowl, miss. I know what you done. I know what you called. — Douglas Clegg

God was like the phone company: You paid your bill, and sometimes you got cut off anyway. — Douglas Clegg

I understood, then, where his madness had come from: He, too, had experienced the loss of the good and the victory of the evil. — Douglas Clegg

Death has a price, and all who bargain with the dead must pay it. — Douglas Clegg

If only ... the two most miserable words in the English language. If only. — Douglas Clegg

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes their way. Happiness only happens for those who cry and those who hurt, for only then can they appreciate the importance of people who touch their lives. — Douglas Clegg

Sometimes, they wait. Sometimes, you see the dead come in to the harbor, and their old dogs are all along the docks, wagging their tails, for they have waited for their masters and mistresses for many years. You see mothers who have missed their sons. Fathers who had never spoken of love to their children, ready to embrace them as they voyage from the end of life. It shows the lies of this world, you see. We are wrong about so many things here. Mankind has done terrible things, yet we are forgiven. — Douglas Clegg

You know, my basic theory about kids: they are monsters in children ziploc suits, which they discard when they go to school each day. — Douglas Clegg

We kill, kill, kill. Flesh, spirit, whatever gets in our way. It's like our whole purpose is to extinguish life. And for those who live, there's memory, like a curse. We're such a mixture of frailty and cruelty. — Douglas Clegg

Do you know that when a man becomes old, he begins to remember what he believed in as a child and it all comes back to him? — Douglas Clegg

Louis Maistros has an original and dark vision, full of power. — Douglas Clegg

Everything can work out fine if you just plant your feet on the ground and look straight ahead. Nothing is a tragedy unless you buy it a suit of clothes and give it a free meal. — Douglas Clegg

He was a golden boy in a world of brass and tin. — Douglas Clegg

Words could kill, sometimes, he thought then. Words could change everything. Lourdes — Douglas Clegg

Skinless creatures swayed in death throes from thick, silver hooks. Beneath them, on the turquoise mosaic floor, rows of buckets overflowed with clotting blood. — Douglas Clegg

He put his hand over my mouth. His hand felt warm, full of blood, the hand of a living man. "Death is a gift, so long as it is nature's hand. But this," he drew his hand away, and nodded toward the dead man in the grass. "When we are called back unnaturally, Death demands a price, for there is always a balance. If I am alive, then someone else must die before his time. This is what you have done. But he is the lucky one. He is at peace. I know what awaits him, and I envy him. — Douglas Clegg

She found Lucy to be about as interesting as a toothache. — Douglas Clegg

It is more magnificent than what I thought heaven might be, and yet it is all of its wonder, as well."
...
"Iris, we are shut off from it in this life because if any knew its magnificence, life itself would end, for all who are living would seek death. But as the egg must be in the nest for the bird to fly from it, so the living must live and die when nature intends so that the shell may be broken at the point when the living have wings to fly. It is as if in life we are blind, and in death we see. In life we think in error, but in death we know and love and understand. — Douglas Clegg

I saw him as the supplier of my life. In a dream, in a hole, I saw the great snake of life, devouring its own tail. Life eats life, the image of the snake seemed to tell me. Life devours itself. You are part of this, and so is Gup. The snake is the whip in my father;s hand. The whip is in my hand and reaches from my bloodied back to whip my father's hand. The torturer and the tortured are each playing a part and cannot be without the other. — Douglas Clegg

Victory is freedom of mind and body.' I believe that is true. I would go further and say that victory is freedom of mind from body. Separation from the thing that imprisons us. Flight. Perhaps freedom from life itself. That is victory. Life is brutal. It is like this whip and these ropes. It hurts. It scars. But we must take it. — Douglas Clegg

Besides, back to the subject of you being nuts, all writers are nuts, didn't you know that? — Douglas Clegg

Family is putting up with each other's shit sometimes I guess. — Douglas Clegg

There are monsters in the world. They're called human beings. - Michael Diamond, from The Life Beyond — Douglas Clegg