Tim Dorsey Quotes & Sayings

You never stop being Catholic. It's like the Mafia or Amway. — Tim Dorsey

The Roman Empire invented snacks, right after the aqueducts. Irrigation flowed, food plentiful, people munching between meals in the city-states. They ate these little, sun-dried meaty things, highly distasteful and falling out of favor until olive oil. I just made all that up. The key to life is making shit up. Everyone does it or society would unravel, like, Gee, your hair looks great! Or: God told me you're wrong — Tim Dorsey

He loved his family and fellow man, never raised his voice or fists, and was rewarded with a lifelong, routine digestion of small doses of humiliation. — Tim Dorsey

fusing themselves into a single new genre about partying all night with gangsta bitches screwing cowboys to the nasty beat that leads to Jesus. — Tim Dorsey

The whole key to social climbing is not having spinach in your teeth. — Tim Dorsey

Capitalists don't want free trade any more than they want whooping cough. Their nature is to conglomerate, homogenate, vertically integrate and dominate until there is no competition. The rules? Screw the rules! They'll rig the game, spit on the ball, bribe the refs, tilt the playing field, pork the cheerleaders and kick free enterprise in the nuts. — Tim Dorsey

Son of a bitch!" "What is it?" asked Coleman. "Our flight's delayed!" "But only fifteen minutes," said Coleman. "I've seen this movie before. 'Fifteen minutes' is code for 'at least three to five hours.' They know the plane's stuck in Pittsburgh, where they wrestled another drunk pilot to the runway, but they don't want an open passenger revolt, so they incrementally string us along fifteen minutes at a time, until you're across the international date line." Serge paced in front of the departure screen. Fifteen minutes later, Serge grabbed Coleman and pointed. "Sweet Jesus! They just added another fifteen minutes! — Tim Dorsey

Anger is sweeping the country! Tea bags from sea to shining sea! Voters everywhere exploding from frustration!" "Why?" "Because the facts don't support their beliefs. — Tim Dorsey

We don't simply say something that's untrue. We make statements so insane that there's no possible intelligent response. Like arguing with some old fart in a rocking chair who claims we never landed on the moon. Any educated person can only laugh. Meanwhile, we've just won over all the non-moon-landing votes. — Tim Dorsey

She knew my buttons and kept pressing them like an epileptic in an arcade. If it's any consolation, I gave her fair warning." "Oh, my God! — Tim Dorsey

my life's motto: If you're not willing to invent cool-sounding bullshit about yourself, don't expect others to. — Tim Dorsey

as any roulette player can tell you, past performance has no bearing on future random outcome. So — Tim Dorsey

I'm getting a diamond-hard boner just thinking about it. — Tim Dorsey

Americans tend to overanalyze. Like during the space race, NASA spent fifty thousand dollars developing a zero-gravity pen that didn't skip. Know what the Russians did? Pencil. Think about — Tim Dorsey

I don't suffer from insanity. I can actually say that I enjoy it. — Tim Dorsey

Things sure have changed. FDR tried to calm us: "Nothing to fear but fear itself." Now politicians encourage the jitters. Panic is the new patriotism. "Today's Threat Level: Duck! — Tim Dorsey

First, they set the hook with mind-bending kinky shit. Then a year later you're living in a Talking Heads song, dressed like Teddy Ruxpin, living with a strange woman in a big house full of frilly throw pillows, experiencing the frequency of sex that can only be charted by Halley's Comet. and you're wondering: How did I get here? — Tim Dorsey

Technology has just passed our survival instinct, and the country is spinning on a stationary existential axis of make-believe importance: We text about a Tweet of a YouTube video posted on Facebook with a clip of Glee about not texting that we just texted about. Instead of actual life, we're now living an air-guitar version of life. — Tim Dorsey

True story: Some homeowner's burning a yard pile just like this one. And he goes inside for lemonade and opens the cabinet under the sink to toss something in the trash, and this rat's down in the bottom, gnawing a chicken bone. The rat had been driving the guy crazy for months, living in the walls and scampering through the attic at night like it had combat boots. So the guy grabs a rolling pin and beats it to death. Then he takes it outside and throws it on the burning pile." "Good story," said Coleman. "What's the problem?" "The rat's not dead. The heat wakes him up. It jumps off the pile and makes a beeline for the house. Except now its fur's on fire. The homeowner tries to intercept, but it zips between his legs, runs back inside and gets in the walls. Ignited the insulation. Whole place burned down. — Tim Dorsey

Florida is a theme park," said Serge. "And the theme is weirdness. — Tim Dorsey

South Tampa is the polyp of land that dangles into Tampa Bay like a uvula. — Tim Dorsey

What do they mean 'serial killers'! said Serge. (person 1), okay. But (person 2) was self-defence and the (person 3)-I mean, that was the World Series! You can call me a murderer, fair is fair, but as soon as you put 'serial' in front of it, everyone automatically thinks your crazy. — Tim Dorsey

State Road 60 is one of those great old Florida drives. From Tampa on the west coast to Vero Beach on the east, rolling through Mulberry and Bartow and Yeehaw Junction. Phosphate mines and orange groves and cows loitering near water holes in vast open flats dotted with sabal palms, stretching for miles, making the sky big. Here and there were the kind of occasional, isolated farmhouses that made people subconsciously think: Do they get Internet? In the middle of one overgrown field stood a single concrete wall, several stories high, covered with grime and mildew, the ancient ruins of a drive-in theater. The top of the wall was the last thing to catch a warm glow from the setting sun. — Tim Dorsey

The last door on the second story was the exception. Fresh gold letters:

MAHONEY & ASSOCIATES, PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS.

Mahoney sat inside. The only associate was the fifth of rye residing in his bottom desk drawer. — Tim Dorsey

I smell panic," said Serge. "These are different animals now. They're starting to winnow out the weak at the fringe of the herd. We need to hurry or this could affect our snack situation. — Tim Dorsey

Mount Batten jumped up from his chair and ran yelling across the living room. He broke through the yellow crime scene tape across the front door like a finish line and kept on running. Sharon — Tim Dorsey

Jesus. Why'd you do that?" "That motherfucker slapped me!" "And you just kill him?" "You never motherfuckin' hit a woman!" "How could he have missed you dedication of feminine virtue, especially when you keep saying motherfucker? — Tim Dorsey

It's only socialism if the money goes down, not up. — Tim Dorsey

Your mom's not that bad," said Jim. "Are you trying to make me mad?" "Okay she is." "I knew it. You've never liked her." "What's the right answer?" "So you're just telling me what I want to hear?" Jim reached over and put a hand on his wifes. "I love you. — Tim Dorsey

I've decided to totally rededicate my entire life to being a private eye. Your life, too." "Is this like all your other rededications?" "No!" Serge pounded his fist on the dash. "Those were all spur-of-the-moment impulsive flights of silliness. Like my last idiotic idea of becoming a house hunter. Where's the challenge? — Tim Dorsey

They headed north, their taxi joining a sea of yellow cabs weaving up the Avenue of the Americas. The Russians saw there were lanes painted in the road, but that was clearly part of an ancient custom from some long-forgotten people. — Tim Dorsey

Remember the key to life," Serge shouted over the engine. "Always act like you deserve to be here. — Tim Dorsey

Two preppies from the University of South Florida tried to hit on her with cocaine jokes. Sharon — Tim Dorsey

The common good," said Serge. "It's not hip. — Tim Dorsey

Worry is usually interest paid on a debt that never comes due. — Tim Dorsey

Something else that separates me from society: Super-Positive Perspective! Where normal people would whine about subpar accommodations, I choose to view it as upscale camping. — Tim Dorsey

Hang on to your dreams with everything you got. Because the best life is when your dreams come true. The second-best is when they don't but you never stop chasing them. — Tim Dorsey

I'm a one-hundred-percent, made-in-Florida, dope-smugglin', time-sharin', spring-breakin', log-flumin', double-occupancy discount vacation. I'm a tall glass of orange juice and a day without sunshine. I'm the wind in your sails, the sun on your burn and the moon over Miami. I am the native. — Tim Dorsey

Almighty Father, please stop making jerks. Amen...Break! — Tim Dorsey

He's coming off the bridge," said Serge. "The rocks will start soon." "Rocks?" "It's local tradition, and another reason I love the Keys." Serge stood and put on his sneakers. "It's our version of when those people went out to the overpasses and waved at O. J. Simpson during the slow-motion chase. Except in the Keys, when there's a high-speed pursuit on TV heading south, the locals line the road and wait for the car to come off the bridge to Key Largo. Last time was around Christmas." "You're right." Coleman pointed at the TV again. "They're lining the side of the road. They're throwing rocks." "And we're at Mile Marker 105, so that gives us about three minutes." Serge tightened the Velcro straps on his shoes. "Let's go throw rocks. — Tim Dorsey

It's the big new bridge," said Serge. "Takes you right across Lake What-the-Fuck." "Is that another real name?" "No," said Serge. "That's what I call it. It's really named Lake Surprise. But surprise is usually something good that provides delight, like winning the lottery or reaching in the back of the fridge and finding an unexpected jar of olives. But this lake got its name because it pissed people off." "How'd it do that?" "Another funny story. When Henry Flagler started the Overseas Railroad down the Keys, he looked for the route with the most land, because bridges over water cost more. So he sent out surveyors, and they began laying tracks south from the mainland of Florida, across some little islands and an isthmus to Key Largo. And I can't believe they built that far before realizing that right in the middle of a big chunk of land was this giant lake, and now they have to build an extra bridge that wasn't in the budget. — Tim Dorsey

Courage is the ability to suspend the imagination. — Tim Dorsey

At work, he pretended every woman customer was a floozy with a hard-luck story who only needed a good slapping. — Tim Dorsey

Tampa's Latin quarter, Ybor City. Ybor had been the Cuban-Italian core when Tampa was Cigar City USA. — Tim Dorsey

Murder is such a charged word. You know how some people fixate and won't let things go? They're called cops. — Tim Dorsey

Couldn't be scathed. He was the crack in the system — Tim Dorsey

Yes, give us books about the psychotic behavior and peripheral weirdness we see all around every day
and we will laugh in its face.
We are a proud people.
We are Floridians. — Tim Dorsey

Don't make fun of people who are different. Unless they have more money and influence. Then you must — Tim Dorsey

It only fed my post office psychosis. Whenever I'm in one, and almost to the counter, I keep repeating to myself: 'Please don't put out the "Position Closed" sign; please don't put out the "Position Closed" sign; dear God, don't let him put out the sign; please, please, please, I'm almost to the counter! I made it! I finally made it! He didn't put out the . . . Wait, what's he reaching for? . . . Fuck! — Tim Dorsey

Nothing builds confidence like live ammo. — Tim Dorsey

The way I figured, I was just a kid, and if I could take it apart, they surely could put it back together. Then my mom would walk in the kitchen and see me standing on a chair at the counter, holding a screwdriver with disassembled components all over the place. 'What the heck's going on?' 'I'm intrigued how the blender works. — Tim Dorsey

I go over my own escape routes all the time. To survive in this state, you have to think like the French Resistance. — Tim Dorsey

Traveling is all about talking to new people. That's the ball game. That's the whole point, travel to an exotic place, meet the people, immerse in their culture, and find out why they're so fucked up. If you're not going to spill your guts to complete strangers, why take the trip? You might as well just stay home abusing sex toys until that mishap that brings paramedics and you become the talk of the neighborhood. But communication is easy for me because I'm a listener. I love to hear people gab about themselves. Every single person is special. Everyone has great stories. Like you. I'll bet you have a million. How old are you? Sixty? — Tim Dorsey

Gasparilla is Tampa's annual heritage festival, and Tampa's heritage appears to be about alcohol. — Tim Dorsey

Serge's attention-deficit disorder was the first of many hyphens. Obsessive-compulsive, manic-depressive, anal-retentive, paranoid-schizophrenic. He was believed to be the only self-inflicted case of shaken-baby syndrome. — Tim Dorsey

Far too quickly we grow into jaded adults and lose our appreciation for silliness. — Tim Dorsey

A prosthetic leg with a Willie Nelson bumper sticker washed ashore on the beach, which meant it was Florida.
Then it got weird. — Tim Dorsey

We're dealing with one of the worst kinds of killer." "What kind's that?" asked the lieutenant. "Patient. — Tim Dorsey

Florida is a paradox that way, one of the youngest states, yet with some of the oldest European settlements. And this particular section of the northeast shore was home to a couple of the earliest sixteenth-century Spanish and French fortifications. — Tim Dorsey

Yes Serge has killed a lot of people , but let's not overlook all of his other accomplishments. — Tim Dorsey

Belong to a religion? Doesn't bother me if you do, as long as it's not one that says to stop thinking and be loud about it. — Tim Dorsey

Life's too important to learn new clocks, so I unplug them all and get on with the plot. — Tim Dorsey

Oh, I'm with the government all right," said Serge. "But when I say 'with,' I mean in the context of I'm in favor of it because otherwise there are no streets or postage stamps, and everyone wanders the woods carrying their own mail and looking at the sun to know when to eat until there's an eclipse and everyone's blind. That's why you should vote. — Tim Dorsey

The brain wasn't engineered to deal with that rarefied level of dumbness. — Tim Dorsey

Do you think heaven's like that?
Could be worse, said Serge. You know all those pushy people who keep telling us we're not going to heaven? It could be full of them instead. — Tim Dorsey

The whole family is a bunch of dangerous freaks ... Most are ex-cons or junkies or deranged from inbreeding. Five have died violently, three are back in prison, two have gone insane from untreated venereal disease, and one writes book reviews. — Tim Dorsey

Caught' is a funny word," said Serge. "Most criminals catch themselves, like getting stuck at three A.M. in an air duct over a car-stereo store, and the people opening up in the morning hear crying and screaming from the ceiling, and the fire department has to get him out with spatulas and butter. If your arrest involves a lot of butter, or, even more embarrassing, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, then you actually need to go to jail, if for nothing else just some hang time to inner-reflect. — Tim Dorsey

Back at the Rash [a Florida nightclub], a waif in a lime latex body tube went into the rest room to snort the newest designer drug, XGB5, which gave people the uncanny sensation of throwing money away while chewing their own lips off. It was hard to come by and everyone had to have it. — Tim Dorsey

Here's the plan: We do everything, all the traditions, and we do it grander than anyone ever dreamed! Here are the houselights, which will require extra generators so we don't smash the power grid, the holiday music CDs that will need waterproof outdoor concert speakers, the train set with extra boxes of tracks to connect all the rooms of the house, the toys where we forget the batteries, several gingerbread house kits we'll combine to form a mansion, DVDs of all the classic Christmas specials to run nonstop, mistletoe for all the doorways, the manger scene with a little Jesus that glows in the dark to emphasize the Holy Spirit third of the Trinity because he's the shy one who gets the least press, and all the presents we'll wrap together and give each other as Secret Santas. — Tim Dorsey

Don't you understand? The answer is inside each of you! Don't follow anyone else! Be your own leader! Lead yourselves! — Tim Dorsey

The post office in the city of Christmas, Florida, where thousands descend each year to get their holiday cards postmarked. It's the best tradition we got, so fuck it, I'm rodeo-riding this cultural mutation. — Tim Dorsey

Serge bowed his own head and closed his eyes God, please protect us from your followers. Amen — Tim Dorsey

Our political process appears to be a toxic dance of mutually assured destruction that takes all the citizens down with you, and that can't be right. So I've prepared a little experiment. — Tim Dorsey

"[Those] on fixed incomes are the nation's math elite." from pg.88 of Atomic Lobster. — Tim Dorsey

Another tip to weld society together. Give the person up to bat at the ATM plenty of space so they're not nervous about you peeking at their PIN number or slipping a blade between their ribs the second the money spits out. — Tim Dorsey

A man and his young son crouched in the woods just before sunset, out where Palm Beach County meets the Everglades. Their eyes focused on the train tracks a few yards away, a tight bend just past the clearing where Pratt & Whitney tests its jet engines. A shiny new Lincoln penny sat on one of the rails. "Why are we doing this, Daddy?" "To get a flat penny." "What for?" "Because it's fun!" A train whistle blew in the distance. "Here she comes! Get down!" The pair crouched and waited, the train growing closer. It was in sight before they knew it, nothing but a blur as it entered the bend and hit the penny. There was a harsh grinding of metal. The father and son watched in astonishment as The Silver Stingray jumped the tracks and twenty cars jackknifed down the embankment toward the swamp. "Daddy? Did we do that?" "How'd you like some ice cream? — Tim Dorsey

Route 27 was the spinal cord of Florida, practically vacant since the interstates, which took them up through towns with main streets that had the same early-evening closing hours since 1957. The only signs of life were the parking lights of local police cars on side streets, waiting for the local delinquents. Clewiston, Sebring, Clermont, Leesburg. — Tim Dorsey

Serge nodded. 'And I respect your opinion because you smoke marijuana. You're chemically biased against violence and job applications. — Tim Dorsey

There's the landmark Columbia Restaurant. Try the paella, or the 1905 salad. That virgin olive oil they use!" Serge kissed his fingertips. "Know why it's called the 1905 salad? That's the year they first opened. Very historic. Over a hundred years in the same spot. And you know what that means? Everyone who ate those first salads: all dead. — Tim Dorsey

WITH THREE WEEKS to go in the Florida governor's race, the Tallahassee morning newspaper ran the following headline: 2 HEADS EXPLODE IN SEPARATE INCIDENTS — Tim Dorsey

Those are the Big Three: clipboards, orange cones, elf suits. People don't question — Tim Dorsey

You open a door and find a midget, and there's no way you can be in a bad mood. It's just not possible. — Tim Dorsey

An ax came through the door. Then two firefighters. They looked down at and assistant mall manager crying and wearing a melted toupee, sitting cross-legged next to a mall cop with a bleeding ankle and a mouth full of paper.
One of the firefighters look at the other. Not again. — Tim Dorsey

Make no mistake: I'm all about guns! I just love the legal incongruities our national discourse has spawned, like I can buy a shotgun any time of day without a serious background check, but if I need something for my sniffles, it's six forms of ID and complete school transcripts. The government has essentially created a system where if I want to clear a head cold, the easiest cure is to blow my brains out. — Tim Dorsey

I've been like everywhere And we went to a bunch of different places and got really stoned Then we wnet to another place and got stones again ANd we met these other stoners and went somewhere else and ate tacos ANd I lost my keys and we couldn't go anywhere, so we just got stoned Then we ran out of weed, but I remembered my keys were in the other pocket, adn we went somewhere to score, and got stoned ... "Colman ... " "And more people came over, and we found a bog of marshmallows and made s'mores ... — Tim Dorsey

For long rides, I require a stimulating conversation partner with deep reservoirs of cultural references upon which my metaphors can find purchase ... . — Tim Dorsey

You've been brainwashed by whitey! — Tim Dorsey

But instead they tell you they'll come to fix your cable between noon and five, and I say, okay, I'll pay my next bill between July and November, but they don't laugh. — Tim Dorsey

Nature's what it's all about, but our people have been brainwashed into thinking that life is a cell phone against your head and the TV on a beer commercial with hot chicks. — Tim Dorsey

That, and the untended mental health problems. We have all these insane armed hobos coming from the Midwest, usually Ohio. Fuck Ohio. — Tim Dorsey

Like no other place on earth. Raw natural beauty, relentless freedom, unorthodox natives. A friend told me something else about the Keys I never forgot: Down here, nobody is who they seem to be. When people in other parts of the country want to reinvent themselves, they come to Florida. But when people in Florida want to reinvent themselves, they come to the Keys. — Tim Dorsey

I love conversations!" "Why?" "Because we're all crazy!" said Serge. "And that's how society makes progress: imaginations getting together and glancing off each other in accidental tangents of invention. — Tim Dorsey

Orlando. Tourism on steroids. Florida's mutant chromosome with mouse ears. One of the newer attractions is an air-conditioned dome over a sprawling, man-made replica of the state's natural landscape. They bulldozed nature to build it. — Tim Dorsey

Look forward to the wonderment of growing up, raising a family and driving by the gas station where the popular kids now work. — Tim Dorsey

And another item from the growing file of people who voluntarily wear dunce caps ... You'll be talking cordially to someone and make an offhand reference, 'I recently read where
' and they'll cut you off and say, 'Oh, I don't read' ... This is a tragedy on so many different levels. First, because they don't read, they don't know enough to keep it to themselves. Next, and this is the most amazing part, they use a demeaning tone like I'm the stupid one for wasting time with books. — Tim Dorsey

There, I'm an artist. Thousands of women on ecstasy now want to have three-ways with me. — Tim Dorsey

This was the beginning of Tampa," said Serge. "They built Fort Brooke here in 1823. — Tim Dorsey

What's this whole Parrot Head phenomenon about, anyway?" asked Crease. "It's kind of like AA in reverse. — Tim Dorsey

Plan? He wanted alpha males to populate the planet by impregnating multiple partners, so he gave females the gift of irrationality, able to morph the least little thing that happens anywhere in the world into being your fault, especially if it's your fault. Watch any nature show. The top lion is perfectly happy with a lioness, but then he inexplicably moves on. Why? She was trying to change him ... . — Tim Dorsey

This is trash state U.S.A. — Tim Dorsey