Tao Lin Quotes & Sayings

I don't view my memory as accurate or static - and, in autobiographical fiction, my focus is still on creating an effect, not on documenting reality - so 'autobiographical,' to me, is closer in meaning to 'fiction' than 'autobiography.' — Tao Lin

I don't like happy people," Andrew said. "They're already happy; they don't need to be liked." "Wow, so selfless," Mark said. "You're a saint. I commend your selflessness. Amazing. — Tao Lin

I wouldn't think of my characters' moralities at all. And I think I identify fully with every main character I've written about and would say that I am them pretty much. So in terms of that I don't think I'm similar to Bret Easton Ellis . — Tao Lin

Just became so overwhelmed with potential food options that i actually cried — Tao Lin

A world without right or wrong was a world that did not want itself, anything other than itself, or anything not those two things, but that still wanted something. A world without right or wrong invited you over, complained about you, and gave you cookies. Don't leave, it said, and gave you a vegan cookie. It avoided eye contact, but touched your knee sometimes. It was the world without right or wrong. It didn't have any meaning. It just wanted a little meaning. — Tao Lin

My favourite emotions include 'brief calmness
in good weather' and 'i am the only person alive — Tao Lin

Good morning, this is Dan Rather, with the news. Today, [person] died in an insanely nonhumorous manner — Tao Lin

Death is the end of the fear of death. [ ... ] To avoid it we must not stop fearing it and so life is fear. Death is time because time allows us to move toward death which we fear at all times when alive. We move around and that is fear. Movement through space requires time. Without death there is no movement through space and no life and no fear. To be aware of death is to be alive is to fear is to move around in space and time toward death. — Tao Lin

Colin didn't want to go back to his room. He walked around for a very long time, looking down at the sidewalks and streets, and thought of the things he and Dana might say to each other if she were with him. And every once in a while he would catch himself smiling and laughing a little, and it was those moments right after - as, having lapsed into fantasy, there was a correction, a moment of nothing and then a loose and sudden rush, back into the real world in a trick of escape, as if to some new place of possibilities - that he felt at once, and with clarity, most exhilarated, appreciative, disappointed, and accepting. — Tao Lin

It was a face that said, "Fuck the world," but said it reluctantly, and tonelessly, and then apologized, said "Sorry," but said all of this so shyly that no one heard, anyway, except for himself. A year ago, Uncle Larry went to the hospital with the flu, somehow fell into a coma, and, a few days later, died. — Tao Lin

We have been sitting here all night bullshitting and we still don't know what to do. — Tao Lin

He used to think things like, This organic soymilk will make me healthy and that'll make my brain work better and that'll improve my writing. Also things like, The less I eat the less money I spend on publicly owned companies the less pain and suffering will exist in the world. Now he thinks things like, It is impossible to be happy. Why would anyone think that? — Tao Lin

I actually don't have ... opinions. I'm not being secretive about anything. I just actually don't have opinions about society. I can discern that certain things have an effect on certain other things but I don't view those effects as good or bad. — Tao Lin

Thousands of years from now they will use my fossil remains as an example of a mistake in the evolutionary process — Tao Lin

Matt would stare at Andrew for 10 minutes. It's depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat. — Tao Lin

I know Bret Easton Ellis has said he has some amount of empathy for every character he has written about, though, so maybe I am similar to him in terms of that. I'm not sure what he thinks exactly. — Tao Lin

It would take her thousands of steps to get anywhere, but she would get there easily, and when she arrived, in the present, it would seem like it had been a single movement that brought her there. Did existence ever seem worked for? One seemed simply to be here, less an accumulation of moments than a single arrangement continuously gifted from some inaccessible future. — Tao Lin

As a child, she'd always had what she imagined were fascinating thoughts, but didn't ever say them. Once, as a little girl, at recess, she thought that if she ran very fast at a pole and then caught it and swung quickly around, part of her would keep going, and she would become two girls. — Tao Lin

Yeah. I like Chopin. I feel like Chopin is 'emo.' Do you like Chopin? — Tao Lin

people who don't know what to title their novels/movies can title them 'where's waldo' and insert waldo (or not, depending on tone) in one scene — Tao Lin

He wanted to hide by shrinking past zero, through the dot at the end of himself, to a negative size, into an otherworld, where he would find a place - in an enormous city, too large to know itself, or some slowly developing suburb - to be alone and carefully build a life in which he might be able to begin, at some point, to think about what to do about himself. — Tao Lin

I just keep investing in the future, and I haven't reached the point where I'm not doing that. — Tao Lin

Nice said Paul staring transfixed at Fran's delicate and extreme gaze, like that of a skeleton with eyeballs, or a person with their face peeled off. — Tao Lin

The Gorilla Foundation, like a tree or cloud or other thing from nature, seems to mostly present itself only to an ideal, abstract, fully internalized audience - one that does not question sincerity or intent, that does not require justification or meaning, that would rather The Gorilla Foundation not pause (to defend itself, to allow others time to comprehend it) but to continue always with what it's already doing. In this manner The Gorilla Foundation exists more in actualization of itself than in opposition to something else, which implies, to some degree, that it doesn't earnestly believe it - or anything - "needs" to exist or is "right" or "wrong," rather that its "mission" is a temporary concept, created by itself to directionalize itself, that without which [The Gorilla Foundation] wouldn't exist. — Tao Lin

It seems like for the last 10 years, I've just been investing in the future. — Tao Lin

I don't know how to incorporate regret. But I'll say, like, "It affected me that way," "I learned this," "Next time maybe I'll do it differently." — Tao Lin

Life, people learned, was not easy. Life was not cake. Life was not a carrot cake. — Tao Lin

I don't think I understand the concept of regret. Because if I regret anything, that would mean, like, I hate myself. — Tao Lin

I feel connected with people because of their sense of humor, worldview, and what they think and feel about certain existential issues (things not affected, in my view, by if someone rides a horse or drives a car or talks only IRL or only by typing), not how old they are, what they use to convey what they think and feel about certain existential issues, or if we have both watched the same TV shows or looked at the same websites. — Tao Lin

The late-afternoon sky, in Paul's peripheral vision, panoramic and mostly unobstructed, appeared rural or suburban, more indicative of forests and fields and lakes - of nature's vast connections, through the air and the soil, to more of itself - than of outer space, which was mostly what Paul thought of when beneath an urban sky, even in daytime, especially in Manhattan, between certain buildings, framing sunless zones of upper atmosphere, as if inviting space down to deoxygenate a city block. — Tao Lin

I think you like other things better than me," he said on Gmail chat that night. "I mean generally you like things that aren't people. More than people. Like eating or sleeping or something. If you don't want to do something then just tell me and we don't have to be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore, instead of just pretending or something."
"I want to be boyfriend and girlfriend," said Dakota Fanning. "I am learning. I know what to do."
"I don't understand when people don't do what they say they want to do."
"Me either," said Dakota Fanning. "That's why I don't understand myself or like myself."
"I still don't understand," said Haley Joel Osment.
"I'm killing myself," said Dakota Fanning. "Good night. — Tao Lin

Sam looked at the sky to see if there were a lot of stars. There seemed to be a normal amount of stars. — Tao Lin

I felt confused, to some degree, by everything - but in a delayed manner, in that I seemed to be repeatedly realizing that I felt confused, instead of feeling directly confused — Tao Lin

i can kill my literary agent's entire family
just kidding
some of you just thought, 'it's wrong to kill the wife and the children'
but really i'm kidding
even though i shouldn't be
since it's probably philosophically sound to kill people
because life is suffering and suffering is the only real evil
and if you want to have meaning then that's pretty much all you get
to make it your goal to wake up and kill people
not just select kinds of people, like hitler did, but all people, like the universe did in the future — Tao Lin

Haley Joel Osment said "Party girl" which was a term they had for people who did not speak in a quiet monotone and were not severely detached. — Tao Lin

As a teenager i experienced existential despair as an unsexy sensation of repressed orgasm in the chest; today i experience existential despair as a distinct sensation of wanting to lecture you on how i am better than you, without crushing your hopes and dreams — Tao Lin

I may not be confident or ambitious but at least I'm not confident and ambitious — Tao Lin

A child said to me 'Do you want to see my penis?' and I said 'Maybe when you're older' and his mom said 'What's wrong with you?' so I said 'Okay, show me your penis now I guess — Tao Lin

I like reading books where people with a lot of money use it to do whatever they want. Like stay in expensive hotels and do whatever drugs they want and fly wherever they want. — Tao Lin

A lot of people think I'm a vegan. I'm not. — Tao Lin

My publisher had mailed [Bret Easton Ellis] Richard Yates. And when I talked to him he said he had read all my prose books. And he said something like, "You got a lot of mileage out of Dakota Fanning." — Tao Lin

I don't know what Douglas Coupland thinks about his writing. I've read maybe one page of one of his books and didn't think I was similar to him. But it seems like people just compare you to anyone, pretty much. — Tao Lin

I think Gmail chats are different than IRL conversations because Gmail chats are saved by Gmail exactly as they occurred. I like texts and emails. Seems like I don't have anything to say that isn't obvious about texts, emails, and Gmail chats. — Tao Lin

I don't actually enjoy parties or relationships, I just like the idea that I could maybe be in either of those things — Tao Lin

The unindividualized, shifting mass of everyone else would be a screen, distributed throughout the city, onto which he'd project the movie of his uninterrupted imagination. Because he'd appear to, and be able to pretend he was, but never actually be a part of the mass, maybe he'd gradually begin to feel a kind of needless intimacy, not unlike being in the same room as a significant other and feeling affection without touching or speaking. — Tao Lin

It seems like most people will agree that they would like if they were treated by other people based on what they have concretely done in their life, not what other people have done, with their lives. — Tao Lin

Sometimes an alien would stand with a moose, not because of solidarity, but because of accidentally doing it. — Tao Lin

Does a society exist where it's become acceptable to wear 'helmets' enclosing one's entire head when in public to preempt social interaction — Tao Lin

I was delivering pizzas at Domino's. I was 17 maybe. I liked it a lot. Just driving in the nice weather and listening to music. — Tao Lin

I usually have Kafka biography in my bathroom. It's a book I can open at random and feel interested in immediately. It's really funny. With this book, since I'm opening it at random and immediately interested, I don't feel the need to read more than I want to read, in that there's not, like, a plot that leads me along. So I can stop whenever. — Tao Lin

I feel 'proud' whenever I feel that I've worked on something for a certain amount of time with a certain amount of attention. I'm not sure if I think in terms of 'pride' though. — Tao Lin

It seems like I'm not [happy]. Because if you look at my tweets and what I think and say, it seems like I'm worried about what's going to happen. — Tao Lin

Note the similarities with buddhism
a buddhist who has achieved nirvana is not sad
primarily because it does not know the concept
of sad [ ... ] — Tao Lin

Focusing on being a person instead of an Asian or an [anything] seems to promote a worldview that encourages people to treat others based on what each person has specifically done in their life, which seems like it would reduce such things as war, racism, unfairness, "hate crimes," [other things most people feel aversion toward]. — Tao Lin

I like most any place if I have Internet access. — Tao Lin

pink hamster' recently criticized for not knowing what the word 'meta' means practicing a LOOKBOOK.nu pose titled 'Practicing A LOOKBOOK.nu Pose In Anticipation of a Rumored LOOKBOOK.nu for Hamsters' in anticipation of a rumored LOOKBOOK.nu for hamsters worried that LOOKBOOK.nu for hamsters will never be created and beginning to think (causing its eyes to unfocus slightly) of another way to show that it knows what the word 'meta' means and if maybe there's a way to incorporate all of this, as it is, without the existence of LOOKBOOK.nu for hamsters, into one thing that would show to its detractors that it definitely knows what the word 'meta' means — Tao Lin

If I don't like someone and I start reading their stuff, it seems like my brain will just automatically start criticizing everything that's there. It's really hard to read a book without having all this outside information telling you what to think about it. — Tao Lin

Loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shape
of a helicopter the same size as the helicopter
and that's it's only skill
and it isn't good enough
but it's still amazing. — Tao Lin

Though if love was an animal, Garret knew, it would probably be the Loch Ness Monster. If it didn't exist, that didn't matter. People made models of it, put it in the water, and took photos. The hoax of it was good enough. The idea of it. Though some people feared it, wished it would just go away, had their lives insured against being eaten alive by it. — Tao Lin

Periods are the only thing i can think of where its a problem if you don't bleed — Tao Lin

I don't have a definition for depression. I'm productive, and that's not a sign of depression, right? And I don't have weeks where I don't leave my bed. It seems like depressed people have those. — Tao Lin

I won," said Chelsea's dad, and went to give Chelsea a high-five, but missed, as they were standing too close.
"My fault," he said. "That was my fault."
"Oh," Chelsea said.
And he stepped back a little and tried again, but Chelsea, distracted now by something - maybe the plant in the far corner, standing and waiting like a person in a dream; or maybe the green shoe or some other thing that was out there and longing, to be looked at, and taken - wasn't ready, and their hands, his then hers, passed through the air in a kind of wave, a little goodbye. — Tao Lin

I don't think music affects what words I choose to type in what order, within what punctuation, at this point, because I'm rereading and editing each sentence, at this point, in my published books, probably 100-150 times each, on average, and listening to probably 20-60 different songs in that time. — Tao Lin

If a context and a goal is defined I could say if it's good or bad. But overall I don't view things as good or bad. So I'm like a robot or computer in that sense. So maybe that's why people don't think they know me when they read my writing. — Tao Lin

Pessoa talked about there being no escape," the bear said. "He was right. — Tao Lin

There was a metal rod inside of Colin. The rod went from his stomach to the middle of his head. It was made of steel and sugar, and had been dissolving inside of Colin for ten or fifteen years, slow and sweet, above and behind his tongue; and he could taste it in that way, like an aftertaste, removed and seeping and outside of the mouth. Sometimes he'd glimpse it with the black, numb backs of his eyes. But what he really wanted was to wrench it out. Cut it up and chew it. Or melt it. Bathe in the hard, sweet lava of it. — Tao Lin

Regarding drugs: just the existence of drugs seems troubling to me. — Tao Lin

Patriotism is the belief that not all human lives are worth the same. — Tao Lin

Tact was taking its clothes off and belching, reaching for the remote. This is what happened, Greg knew, what always happened. You did things -- you tried, maybe -- but after you did one things you had to wait a while before you could do another thing. You had to sit in a waiting room where the magazines were non-profit and frank, without gloss or pictures, but only rectangular article after article on why it -- other people, communication, life generally -- just was not worth it. You were bored, so you read them all. — Tao Lin

Was this for real? Andrew had forgotten how to be happy! He suspected that it involved unwarranted feelings of fondness for other people, too much self-esteem, a sort of long-term delusion that manifested as charisma, and a blocking out of certain things, like lonely people, depressed people, desperate people, homeless people, people you've hurt, people you like who don't like you, politics, the nature of being and existence, the continent of Africa, the meat industry, McDonald's, MTV, Hollywood, and most or all of human history, especially anything having to do with the Western Hemisphere between 1400 and 1900, plus or minus 200 years
but he wasn't sure. Why did it involve so many things? Maybe it was just too hard. — Tao Lin

The idea of 'advice,' in terms of telling people advice or asking people for advice, has become not comprehensible to me, to a certain degree, due to feeling, like, for something to be accurately defined as 'good' or 'bad,' I would want to know the context, goal, perspective for it. — Tao Lin

He asked if there were more things she had lied about. She said she had to think. She said she was still thinking. After about two minutes she said she was still thinking. — Tao Lin

You were one person alive and your brain was encased in a skull. There were other people out there. It took effort to be connected. — Tao Lin

I try not to think of myself as a person
but a metal object, built suddenly by machines in complete darkness
something impossible to hurt with a shovel — Tao Lin

If I wrote about "being [abstraction]" I would be ignoring existential issues (such as death, limited-time, the arbitrary nature of the universe, the mystery of consciousness) that I feel affect me most in my life and think about most of the time. Another reason is that it doesn't seem specific or accurate, to me, to write about "being [abstraction]." I think there are some other reasons. — Tao Lin

I'm not being secretive about anything. I just actually don't have opinions about society. — Tao Lin

I don't know what to say about Asians. I think everyone is "racist," to differing degrees, in that everyone's brain will automatically associate information with other information, based on the information they are looking at (for example skin color, bone structure), but I think focusing on race in any manner that isn't neutral or self-aware probably increases racism. — Tao Lin

I listen to music almost any time I'm not sleeping, 'hanging out' with specific people, or showering. — Tao Lin

On average, since the urge to kill myself isn't so strong that I actually kill myself, the world is worth living in. — Tao Lin

He sometimes felt that life was something that had already risen, and all of this, the Jackson Pollack of spring, summer, and fall, the vague refrigeration and tinfoiled sky of wintertime, was just a falling, really, originward, in a kind of correction, as if by spritual gravity, towards the wiser consciousness
or consciousnessless, maybe; could gravity trick itself like that?
of death. It was a kind of movement both very slow and very fast; there was both too much and not enough time to think. — Tao Lin

Do you sometimes look up from the computer and look around the room and know you are alone, I mean really know it, then feel scared ? — Tao Lin

Sad things are beautiful only from a distance
therefore you just want to get away from them
from a distance of one hundred and thirty years
... i'm going to distance myself until the world is beautiful — Tao Lin

Gradually, after being the target a few times of a similar capriciousness, which he discerned as default behavior for most people, and not liking it, Paul learned to not be more generous or enthusiastic or attentive that he could sustain regardless of his mood and to not talk to people if his only reason to was because he felt lonely or bored. — Tao Lin

I just don't feel good if I'm repeating myself. — Tao Lin

Moose had no friends that year. A lot of the time a moose would feel tired and lean against other moose. Only there wouldn't be moose there and the moose would fall. — Tao Lin

The correct arrangement of words will make these bad feelings go away tonight. — Tao Lin

If you're, like, a PhD student in English, and you look at each instance that Richard Yates is mentioned in the book ... it has sort of it's own narrative that one could analyze and write literary criticism about. — Tao Lin

I think it would be funny for people to read in obituaries of me that my major contribution to the arts was the popularization of the phrases 'neutral facial expression' and 'screaming in agony.' — Tao Lin

Everyone is folding boxes. Andrew is folding boxes. If the entire job were to fold boxes people would scream. They would fold, and sometimes scream, existentially, then be dragged into a field and beaten into a paste. Sometimes there would be a killing rampage. — Tao Lin

I don't have specific music for when I'm writing. I'm usually listening to the same playlist or 'artist' before I arrive at the computer as when I'm walking somewhere after leaving the computer. — Tao Lin

PRO TIP: IF YOU'RE SAD AND ALONE IN THE PLACE YOU LIVE THEN YOU GO TO ANOTHER PLACE YOU WILL STILL BE SAD AND ALONE WHEN YOU COME BACK — Tao Lin

Susie-Q, said Daniel with a smirk-like grin indicating both earnest disapproval and a kind of fondness toward Seroquel and its intense, often uncomfortable tranquilizing effects - as if, believing Susie-Q wasn't malicious, he could forgive her every time she induced twelve hours of sleep followed by twelve to twenty-four hours of feeling lost and irritable, therefore she functioned, if inadvertently, as a teacher of forgiveness and acceptance and empathy, for which he was grateful. — Tao Lin

When he heard laughter, before he could think or feel anything, his heart would already be beating like he'd sprinted twenty yards. As the beating slowly normalized he'd think of how his heart, unlike him, was safely contained, away from the world, behind bone and inside skin, held by muscles and arteries in its place, carefully off-center, as if to artfully assert itself as source and creator, having grown the chest to hide in and to muffle and absorb - and, later, after innovating the brain and face and limbs, to convert into productive behavior - its uncontrollable, indefensible, unexplainable, embarrassing squeezing of itself. — Tao Lin

I know,' said Erin, and described how she'd lately felt depressed in a new and scary way, which Paul also had felt lately and described as a sadness-based fear, immune to tone and interpretation, as if not meant for humans - more visceral than sadness, but unlike fear because it decreased heart rate and impaired the senses, causing everything to seem 'darker. — Tao Lin

If I were really rich, I would be flying places, I think. — Tao Lin

i recommend the phrase 'pineapple ass — Tao Lin

I like part-time jobs in restaurants. — Tao Lin

After untangling a cord, then moving the MacBook to the floor, Paul lay beside Erin and meekly pawed her forearm three times, then briefly held some of her fingers, which were surprisingly warm. He lay stomach-down with his arm on her arm, thinking that if she woke, while he was asleep, this contact could be viewed as accidental. Maybe she would roll toward him, resting her arm across his back - they'd both be stomach-down, as if skydiving - in an unconscious or dream-integrated manner she wouldn't remember, in the morning, when they'd wake in a kind of embrace and begin kissing, neither knowing who initiated, therefore brought together naturally, like plants that join at their roots. — Tao Lin

Amoeba ass is so hot. — Tao Lin

My first book was poetry, but I didn't write it first. I wrote it third. So my first two books were prose. — Tao Lin