Gene Doucette Quotes & Sayings

New York is the one place in the world that actively encourages rudeness, because that's the only way to get past the fake bag carriers, homeless people, newspaper thieves, Jesus freaks, and everyone else who wants something and isn't afraid to ask for it, repeatedly, at close range. — Gene Doucette

Religion is still the very best way to get someone to accept something unabashedly ridiculous. — Gene Doucette

Karyos's people adopted an ingenious, if somewhat perplexing attitude that life was a circle. Not like Disney's circle of life thing, which was really just a nice way to say, "death is normal, children, so suck it up. — Gene Doucette

[T]he truth is the percentage of vampires that are also evil killers is about the same as the percentage of normal people who are also evil killers. — Gene Doucette

I was suicidal for two solid centuries once. That was during the early part of what they now call the Dark Ages, in medieval Europe. Suicidal tendencies were de rigueur at the time, and I'm nothing if not trendy. — Gene Doucette

...while there may have been gods, they weren't particularly well defined. If, for instance, something unusually lucky happened, one might declare that a god--pick one--was feeling generous that day. And if a particularly bad thing happened, a god (usually a different one) was upset about something or other. Gods, in other words, were what most of us would now call chance or luck. And in that sense they served their purpose, by making a random existence seem less random. — Gene Doucette

I know in another decade or two I'm going to have to get used to the idea of reading without paper in my hands, but I'm going to be making that trip kicking and screaming. Maybe that sounds stubborn, but my relationship with the printed word is the longest one I've ever had and I'm not ready to quit on it yet. — Gene Doucette

Most every old civilizations looks at others--members of the same species but not of the same tribe--as wild men. It's a common rationalization, because when you reduce someone else to a level of something like an animal, it makes them easier to kill. — Gene Doucette

[K]nowing one's fate never made a whit of difference, except it made the fated a tad more anxious. — Gene Doucette

[D]espite the patina of civility coating most of modern society, underneath it is a thick layer of savagery. — Gene Doucette

Religious fanatics are the worst. They're basically impossible to bargain with, they accept no outside opinion about anything, and they departed from reality well before you met them. — Gene Doucette

[M]ost of the people I have ever met who claim not to care about money already have more than they could ever need. — Gene Doucette

Impending death makes one run faster. I think that's probably why they fire a gun before track meets. — Gene Doucette

The thing is, we all have a little animal in us, and if you ask us to, we can do a very good job of behaving like one. — Gene Doucette

(As a side note: I thought money was a bad idea way back when it was first invented. I remember the moment very clearly. This guy owed me a sheep, but instead of giving me an actual sheep he gave me five coins he said were worth the same as a sheep. "But I can't eat round pieces of metal, asshole," were my exact words.) — Gene Doucette

To ward off these disasters, they spent a whole lot of time trying to keep their gods happy via a number of complex rituals, many involving copious amounts of sex ("the gods wish us to have sex" is the oldest pickup line in the world). — Gene Doucette

Morning conversations should be between very close friends or lovers, and otherwise avoided entirely. — Gene Doucette

I'm a pretty sad example of what one should do with eternal life. I've never reached any higher level of consciousness, I don't have access to any great truths, and I've never borne witness to the divine or transcendent. Some of this is just bad luck. Like working in the fishing industry in Galilee and never once running into Jesus. — Gene Doucette