Richard Kadrey Quotes & Sayings

I don't want to run for anything. I want to shove this miserable cheap-ass check so far up Wells's ass he can read the routing number out the back of his eyes. — Richard Kadrey

If I learned anything Downtown, it's this: the only real difference between an enemy and a friend is the day of the week. — Richard Kadrey

How do you explain to someone that you understand their fear, then convince them that it's going to be all right? In my experience, the more you talk about what scares them, the worse it gets. There's not much to do but ride out the fear with them and try to keep them away from liquor and razor blades. — Richard Kadrey

You're a philosopher." "No. Just drunk. — Richard Kadrey

Fuck you, angel. Fuck you and all God's little prison bitches. He slips you some cigarettes and a con job smile and you run off to do his dirty work for him. Go and scare some sinners. No one's listening to you here. — Richard Kadrey

It's more than coping. It's adaptation. — Richard Kadrey

I can deal with fighting in the arena in Hell, but laundry and dishes put the fear of God in me. — Richard Kadrey

There won't be any more Lucifers," he says. "And no more Hell. At least not in its present form." "I'm not getting you." "We talked once . . . well, you harangued and I politely listened, about opening the gates of Hell. Dismantling it in a sense. Opening Heaven to whoever among the fallen can make their way there and who choose to stay. Hell will remain as it is. With a few repairs to make it more hospitable. Any angel or soul that chooses to remain here can do so. — Richard Kadrey

When you're facing down multiple attackers, you always want to make the first move. It lets them know that you're ready to fight and that you're crazy enough to get the party started. One rule of thumb in fighting is that crazy can often overcome skill and numbers, because, while a trained fighter might actually enjoy going up against another trained fighter, no one really wants to wrestle with crazy. Crazy doesn't know when it's winning. And crazy doesn't know when to stop. If you can't pull off crazy, if, for instance, you're handcuffed in a small van with six armed assailants, stupid is a decent substitute for crazy. — Richard Kadrey

Maybe home isn't the place you love, just the place you know best. — Richard Kadrey

Memories are bullets. Some whiz by and only spook you. Others tear you open and leave you in pieces. — Richard Kadrey

This is beautiful." "If you're Ronald Reagan, I guess." "The idea of it, I mean. The beauty hidden within the rot." "Sure. That's what I meant, too." I — Richard Kadrey

Oh Christ. Put me back with the zombies, Strawberry Shortcake. [p. 411] — Richard Kadrey

It's so quiet and peaceful out here I'm getting bored with breathing. Maybe we'll get lucky and the world will go to Hell again. Fingers crossed. — Richard Kadrey

You don't have to be afraid of me. Eugene likes you. Doc likes you. That means I like you. We're all family now. All the funny little people who live in the cracks of the world. — Richard Kadrey

That's what Glocks are. High-precision killing machines that scream Daddy Issues. — Richard Kadrey

I came ready to fight Genghis Khan and I walk in on a shut-in playing the biggest Dungeons and Dragons game in history. — Richard Kadrey

Whiskey doesn't mix well with toothpaste, but I already filled the glass, and once whiskey's been let loose you have to deal with it, like love or a rabid dog. — Richard Kadrey

Now you are thinking like a thief. Fewer guns and more exits. We'll cure your cowboy ways yet. (Vidocq) — Richard Kadrey

It's not necessary to fill every moment with your own voice. Silence terrifies you. You see your own existence as so tenuous that you're afraid you'll pop like a bubble if, at every opportunity, you don't remind the world that you're alive. But wisdom begins in silence. In learning to listen. To words and to the world. Trust me. You won't disappear. And, in time, you might find that you've grown into something unexpected." "What? — Richard Kadrey

It's more like how some people can't help but bring out the not necessarily righteous parts of your personality. Like how you meet someone and instantly know they're a full-time professional victim, and no matter how hard you try, something takes over and you can't help needling them. — Richard Kadrey

Traven stares at me. If eyes could scream, run home, and hide under the blankets, he'd be blind. Is — Richard Kadrey

In the Tarot deck, the Fool is depicted as a young man about to step off a cliff into empty air. Most people assume that the Fool will fall. But we don't see it happen, and a Fool doesn't know that he's subject to the laws of gravity. Against all odds, he just might float. — Richard Kadrey

Nothing nice happens to murdered women. — Richard Kadrey

They can talk shit about each other behind the others' backs, but when it comes down to it, money is the one true race and everyone down here is the color of greenbacks and as tall as mountains. — Richard Kadrey

Don't drink too much."
"When I can spell out your name in shot glasses, I'll stop."
"I'll have to get a shorter name."
"I'll have to forget how to spell it. — Richard Kadrey

The whole Mangarm crew is gaunt but the woman looks like a mummy with a hangover. But she's alive. I can hear her heart and smell her sweat, which isn't all that pleasant. She — Richard Kadrey

She undoes a clasp on her golden gown and it falls to the floor. She's beautiful. The half of her that's covered in skin. The rest looks like Thanksgiving leftovers a couple of days past their prime. — Richard Kadrey

Death, like birth, is a secret of nature." Only with birth you get a blanket and a bottle. You get a blanket with death too, but they call it a shroud and everyone else gets the bottle. — Richard Kadrey

Beautiful. Now I have to burrow like a groundhog into Mason's basement to the same room where he summoned those things to take me Downtown. Nothing can possibly go wrong with this plan. — Richard Kadrey

L.A. is what happens when a bunch of Lovecraftian elder gods and porn starlets spend a weekend locked up in the Chateau Marmont snorting lines of crank off Jim Morrison's bones. — Richard Kadrey

Calm down. Deep breaths. Go to your happy place. Oh, wait. I don't have one. — Richard Kadrey

It doesn't matter if you and everyone else in the room are thinking it. You don't say the words. Words are weapons. They blast big bloody holes in the world. And words are bricks. Say something out loud and it starts turning solid. Say it loud enough and it becomes a wall you can't get through. — Richard Kadrey

Mammon finally sees me as I step out from behind his floating map of the universe. The room is empty except for us. Mammon's dead officers have all winked out of existence and are on their way to Tartarus, the Hell below Hell. I — Richard Kadrey

If you ever need to confirm that a girl is worth coming back from Hell for, show her your monster arm and see what she says. — Richard Kadrey

No one says anything. We've hit into one of those weird silences that happen when someone drops something too real into the middle of a conversation that should just have been about drinking and patting ourselves on the back. — Richard Kadrey

So, you're the angel of Death?" The angel shook his head, a little embarrassed. "I don't have that honor. In Heaven, I'm the celestial who bears the great golden quills, the silver Chroma, the holy vellums upon which the Lord God inscribes the fate of the universe." Tiras's eyes narrowed. "You're in charge of office supplies. You're the angel of office supplies." The — Richard Kadrey

No wonder Sherlock Holmes did all that coke. Math is hard. — Richard Kadrey

I'd like to think they're staring at me because of my white-hot animal magnetism, but I'm not Elvis. I'm Lobster Boy, hear me roar. — Richard Kadrey

Let me finish my beer." (Stark)
"Of course. The end of the world can wait.(Kasabian) — Richard Kadrey

In this life, no matter what anyone promises you, what allegiances of love or fealty they swear or what gods they pray to, you will never have more than what you have at this moment. — Richard Kadrey

Shit," Jonny mumbled as he stepped on something soft and clinging in the doorway of the abandoned hotel. Then "Shit" again as he recognized the accuracy of his curse. — Richard Kadrey

A gun is like love. The universal language. — Richard Kadrey

Everything's show biz in the end — Richard Kadrey

She'd [Allegra] look like Foxy Brown's little sister, except her head is SHAVED SMOOTH. — Richard Kadrey

I once considered learning to love iced coffee, but then I remembered I'd have to kill myself, so I gave up the idea. — Richard Kadrey

The place looks like where David Lynch would meet Beaver Cleaver's mom for secret afternoons of bondage and milkshakes. — Richard Kadrey

Are you asking because you want to see if doc can turn you into a librarian when all this is over? [p.240:] — Richard Kadrey

Well said, young lady. You've ensnared me in a petite prevarication. — Richard Kadrey

Thanks for treating me like, you know, a person through all this shit. I know that isn't always easy. (Stark)
You do have a habit of pissing on other people's welcome mats. But, when a gentleman gives you a booty call to a massacre, it's easy to forgive. Ciao. (Candy) — Richard Kadrey

Maybe you could take us to meet them," says Delon. She raises her eyebrows. "When I called you a fool earlier, I meant it figuratively. Now you're making me think I might have a been a bit too generous." "But you know how to contact them." "Why would I do that?" Delon — Richard Kadrey

What the fuck are you two talking about? Why are all dreams and prophecies so goddamn obscure?" "Because, dumb-ass, if any one of them flat-out told you what was coming, you'd try to stop it or change it. Some things you can't stop. You just have to go through them. At least with a clue, you'll be able to recognize it when it gets there. — Richard Kadrey

That's more interesting than a two-headed calf singing "Some Velvet Morning" in tight harmony. — Richard Kadrey

Damn, it feels great to hurt idiots. — Richard Kadrey

Teddy is a stone-cold son-of-a-bitch killer. — Richard Kadrey

This is new. I never heard of Hellions vivisecting their own. They do it to some of the more heinous dead souls in the House of Knives, but not to each other. Whatever — Richard Kadrey

My head is full of monsters and I'm one of them. — Richard Kadrey

You were a prick and a crook, but no one deserves to go out the way you went. I hope it was over quick and that you tasted like ass all the way down. Amen. — Richard Kadrey

Maybe that's why Heaven is silent and God doesn't speak to man anymore. Heavenly intervention would blow the point spread. — Richard Kadrey

I'm steel-toed boots in a ballet-slipper world. — Richard Kadrey

If Jesus was a bartender, He would still only be half as cool as Carlos. — Richard Kadrey

All losers are romantics. It's what keeps us from blowing our brains out. — Richard Kadrey

Sometimes just seeing a woman smile is like a knife in the heart. It hurts and it rattles your whole system, but against all your instincts you swallow the pain and keep looking. After a while you realize it doesn't hurt as much as you thought it would. — Richard Kadrey

Maybe I need to shake their faith a little." Sola puts the spoon back into the yogurt. "How?" "A good, long nose pick might be a good start. Really dig for the mother lode." Vidocq laughs a little. "Wait until I have gone home before you implement that strategy, please." I look at Sola. "How come you're not all dazzled by my Heavenly awesomeness? — Richard Kadrey

Maybe she'll be one of the lucky ones who gets to see it from a distance and makes it home in one piece. Maybe I'll be ripping out her spine tomorrow. I hope she makes it home first. It would suck to be killed and reanimated while wearing corporate antennae. Though, it wouldn't be as bad as reanimating dressed like a crab or a taco because you were pimping a new restaurant when you died. There's a difference between a bad death and the universe stopping by to take a great big shit on you. I — Richard Kadrey

Then why don't you know about the dead men who wandered into Bamboo House of Dolls for human sushi?" "Never. I'd have heard and we'd be on alert." "I guess omnipotence isn't what it used to be. But I can fix that for you. I've already killed three Drifters. Give me a contract and I'll get the rest. There's probably a lot of them, so I ought to get time and a half on this one." Wells scowls. He looks around like he's expecting someone. "If — Richard Kadrey

Is there something else you have to say? Something you're not telling me?" "Yes. Up your game, Stark. These might be the End Times. I don't want you half-assing your way through them." It's a good party-line statement, but it's not what he's thinking about. There's something else. — Richard Kadrey

She's plenty pissed at me. Not as pissed as Rinko but pissed. I can't blame her. I promised her three days and gave her a hundred. This is going to take a time to pass. If it ever does, now that she's moved on to someone else. Still, she went to the hotel with me last night. Was that a welcome home or a good-bye fuck? I guess I'll find out. I'm so fucking good at being patient. I — Richard Kadrey

Nothing moves. Nothing makes a sound. It's as quiet as a pulled-pork-rib joint next to a synagogue. I — Richard Kadrey

Young man, there are some things in the world so profane that their only real value is in not knowing about them. — Richard Kadrey

See? Even dead she makes me a better whatever-the-hell it is I am. A less stupid person. A more considerate monster. — Richard Kadrey

Thank you for that succinct description, but I prefer to go in with facts," says Julie. "Stark — Richard Kadrey

Sola goes back and disappears into the middle of the Vigil crew. Lots of grins and quiet chuckles back there. Law enforcement. It's like high school with better guns. — Richard Kadrey

But she's not going to call the cops or stab me in my sleep, and what more can you ask of a pretty girl? — Richard Kadrey

If you're in the exorcism business, you must know a lot about demons." "Qliphoth," he says. "What?" "It's the proper word for what you call a demon. A demon is a bogeyman, an irrational entity representing fear in the collective unconscious. The Qliphoth are the castoffs of a greater entity. The old gods. They're dumb and their lack of intelligence makes them pure evil." "Okay, Daniel Webster. What happened at the exorcism?" Traven takes a breath and stares at his hands for a minute. "You should know that I don't follow the Church's standard exorcism rites. For instance, I seldom speak Latin. If Qliphoth really are lost fragments of the Angra Om Ya, the older dark gods, they're part of creatures millions of years old. Why would Latin have any effect on them? — Richard Kadrey

He pulls the tape off Allegra's mouth. Grabs her BY THE HAIR and gives her a peck on the lips. — Richard Kadrey

I guarantee you I'm not going to forget your voice. We're going to run into each other down the road sometime, and when we do I'm going to pop you apart one rivet at a time."
"There's the monster. Hello, monster. — Richard Kadrey

He wore his fear on his skin for everyone to see. — Richard Kadrey

Most people are idiots. There's nothing worse than idiots who tell you their opinions. — Richard Kadrey

Being able to embrace contradictions is a sign of intelligence.
Or insanity. — Richard Kadrey

We must always look after our friends, even when they are foolish. Especially when they are foolish. — Richard Kadrey

Don't fuck with me, ball sac, — Richard Kadrey

That sounds like the sin of pride, Marshal. Better run downstairs and let Miss December flog it out of you. Webcam it and charge by the minute. You won't ever have to take government money again. — Richard Kadrey

Vices shouldn't be safe. They're what remind us we're alive and mortal. — Richard Kadrey

Let me make sure I have this straight. The cavalry just now rode into town and it's a Czech Gypsy porn-star zombie killer. Have I got that right? — Richard Kadrey

I'm not a huge fan of other people's logic. — Richard Kadrey

No hospitals, she says.
I know.
Where are we going?
For ice cream. What's your favorite flavor?
Fuck you.
That's my favorite, too. — Richard Kadrey

Don't talk. Kill it.
That might be the sweetest thing a woman's ever said to me on a first date. — Richard Kadrey

The universe is a meat grinder and we're just pork in designer shoes, keeping busy so we can pretend we're not all headed for the sausage factory. Maybe I've been hallucinating this whole time and there is no Heaven and Hell. Instead of having to choose between God and the devil, maybe our only real choice comes down to link or patty? — Richard Kadrey

There's the opposite of love at first sight. There are people walking the earth that the moment you meet them, you want to punch them and keep punching them. — Richard Kadrey

Vidocq and Allegra are holding hands on the small bed. I don't need to listen to their hearts or breathing. They're radiating tension like a microwave oven. Kasabian has gone back to his computer, trying to ignore all of this. Traven looks a little lost. Candy's not much better. I — Richard Kadrey

No need to kill everyone. They know not to let their Chihuahuas piss on my lawn. — Richard Kadrey

The building has shielded generators. The power will be back on in the next three minutes. We need to move. Through — Richard Kadrey

The angel in my head talks to me. He's a little Sherlock Holmes, which, I guess makes me Dr. Watson. I'm not wild about that. Better that he's Starsky and I'm Hutch. At least I get a cool car that way. — Richard Kadrey

You can take the boy out of the Devil but not the Devil out of the boy — Richard Kadrey

Besides, do you think you would have come if I'd just popped into your tattoo shop one night around closing and
said, 'Hello, I'm the Prince of Darkness. Think you could help me out
with a little war next Tuesday, say, sixish? — Richard Kadrey

If Donald Trump and the Wicked Witch of the West had a kid, it would be Jayne-Anne. She looks like a librarian with some money and good taste in clothes but underneath the Verace, she's Godzilla with tits. — Richard Kadrey

I'll give you another example. The snake in the Garden of Eden?"
"Yeah?"
"It was just a snake. Humanity's first real decision was to defy God. So was mine. That's the reason I make you uncomfortable. We're so much alike. — Richard Kadrey

Thank God for whiskey or the world would be so full of secrets the weight would spin us into the sun. — Richard Kadrey

When the world began, there were no such things as monsters. Demons were just fallen angels who, booted out of Heaven and bored with Hell, wandered the Earth sticking little girls' pigtails in inkwells and sinking the occasional continent. — Richard Kadrey