Mcneil Quotes & Sayings

People did usually look at her, because she suggested the engaging young person at a party to whom you would like to be introduced, and others because they knew she was Grady McNeil, the daughter of an important man. There were a few whose eyes she held for a different reason: and it was because, in her aura of willful and privileged enchantment, they sensed she was a girl to whom something was going to happen. — Truman Capote

It is the only mosquito-borne virus that routinely crosses the placenta to kill or cripple babies. Scientists — Donald G. McNeil

The Lord of the Rings is a million times more interesting than mere literature, which is why mere literary critics cannot get to grips with it. — Robert McNeil

Hippies survived Nixon, but punk caved in to Ronald Reagan, know what I'm saying? Punk actually couldn't take a good challenge. — Legs McNeil

I'd found so much comfort in my precise, flawless formulas, and yet life wasn't precise or flawless. Life was a mess. — Gretchen McNeil

Excuse me.
Nine hours ago, I broke off the single most pointlessly agonizing one-way relationship of my young life.
It was a thin slice of hell, and now it is over.. He's not mine. He never will be mine, and I've thrown away three years of my life pining and hoping. Well, not anymore, and I need to get him out of my system. I've given the matter serious thought, and all I want right now is for some total stranger to nail me to a mattress for the next fourteen hours. I will almost certainly cry all over you and call you by his name, but I assure you that my sexual frustration has built to such a fever peak that I will fuck you dry. What do you say?"
"whine — Carla Speed McNeil

YOU! You're boring! You're not even good enough for a good insult! You're in the one place Where magic is always real! Part the seas if you want! Rain down ink and blood! Transform! Fly! You're not allowed to spend the rest of your life panicking! You've got to give something back if you want to get out of here!"
What? What?? What do I give?"
You've got stories in there, I know, I can smell 'em
"
Stoppit, stoppit! I don't! I can't tell a story to save my life!"
Funny you should put it that way. — Carla Speed McNeil

The past has passed. Grudges are a poison better ignored and forgotten.

- Moroda — L.L. McNeil

Arturo Vega: I always thought the ONLY way to really conquer evil is to make love to it. My favourite dream is always the one where I face the devil. I'm in the nude and the devil appears, and he is a beautiful blue. He looks like a mannequin, he looks like a robot. He doesn't have any clothes on, of course, and he's blue and shiny. I keep hearing voices that say, "It's him! It's him!" And I go, "Okay."
So he comes and faces me and I look at him and he's a little taller than me, not much taller, but a little taller, and I say, "I like you." And he says, "I like you too." But he starts beating me up, RA RA RA RA, and I'm down on the floor - and then all of the sudden, he turns into a little baby, like a baby, just a few months old, and then I fuck him, ha ha ha ha. And while I'm fucking him, he's moving his hands, he's moving them like a helpless baby.
So I always thought that to conquer evil, you have to make love to it. You have to understand it. — Legs McNeil

Magic. I want magic. I want magic that works.
THere is no doctor that can make the creature back into my daddy. No therapy that can make him into what he should have been.
No going back to the beginning and rewriting. He is what he is and if I have to write what I know, I'm doomed, because I can never write about this, never. — Carla Speed McNeil

The sixties have a reputation for being open and free and cool, but the reality was that everybody was straight. Everybody was totally straight and then there was Us - this pocketful of nuts. We had long hair, and we'd get chased down the block. People would chase you for ten blocks, screaming, "Beatle!" They were out of their fucking minds- that was the reality of the sixties. Nobody had long hair- you were a fucking freack, you were a fruit, you were not like the rest of the world. - Ronnie Cutrone (1965-1968) — Legs McNeil

According to the historian William H. McNeil, European churches did not have pews until sometime in the eighteenth century. People stood or milled around, creating a very different dynamic than we find in today's churches, where people are expected to spend most of their time sitting. — Barbara Ehrenreich

DEE DEE RAMONE: Sid Vicious followed me all over the place ... the worst time was one night when we had a big party ... They were serving beer and wine, and everybody was bombed. The whole bathroom was filled with puke
in the sink, in the toilets, on the floor. It was really disgusting ... All of a sudden I had a huge amount of speed in my hand. I started sniffing it like crazy. I was so high. And then I saw Sid and he said, 'Do you have anything to get high?' I said, 'Yeah, I got some speed'. So Sid pulled out a set of works and put a whole bunch of speed in the syringe and then stuck the needle in the toilet with all the puke and piss in there and loaded it. He didn't cook it up. He just shook it, stuck it in his arm, and got off. I just looked at him. I'd seen it all by then. He just looked at me kind of dazed and said, 'Man, where did you get this stuff?'. — Legs McNeil

I hate Earl Grey with a passion. It's like drinking stale perfume... — Gil McNeil

In the morning when you wake you have 2 choices...
You can either go back to sleep and watch your dreams.... or ..... you can get up and chase your dreams — Melissa M. McNeil

So rich people could go slumming? Come on, give me a break [it's a] masturbatory fantasy for Anna Wintour and Vogue. They always go and try to co-opt what they can't own. They try to co-opt authenticity and turn it into something boring. — Legs McNeil

Overnight, punk had become as stupid as everything else. This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form-it was about advocating kids to not wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, it was about not being perfect, it was about saying it was ok to be amateurish and funny, that real creativity came out of making a mess, it was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful, and stupid in your life to your advantage. — Legs McNeil

The day that I die will be by far the most beautiful day I ever lived, — Catherine McNeil

Rock & Roll is so great, people should start dying for it. You don't understand. The music gave you back the beat so you could dream. A whole generation running with a Fender bass...

The people just have to die for the music. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music? Die for it. Isn't it pretty? Wouldn't you die for something pretty?

Perhaps I should die. After all, all the great blues singers did die. But life is getting better now.

I don't want to die. Do I? - Lou Reed (1965-1968) — Legs McNeil

I remember my favorite nights were just getting drunk and walking around outside the East Village kicking over garbage cans. Just the night. Just that it would be night again. And you could go out, you know? It just seemed glorious. (Please Kill Me.) — Legs McNeil

They wept no animal's tears. They mourned in a great wickerwork of hard muscle and ragged breath. The hot smell of their coats, their black lips pulled back over ivory teeth, stiff sprays of white whiskers; their heavy hair plaited with silver and faience. Their thick hides shivered, as cattle will shiver away flies.
I sweated and tried not to clear my throat. — Carla Speed McNeil

How can U say one style is better than another. You ought to be able to be an Abstract Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling youve given up something ... I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's going to happen, that's going to be the whole new scene. - Andy Warhol, 1963 — Legs McNeil

Kid, if you never remember your dreams you lose out on half of your life — Carla Speed McNeil

It's much easier than I thought it would be."
Most things in knitting are, really. — Gil McNeil

Somebody compared him to Billy McNeil, but I don't remember Billy being crap. — Tommy Docherty

Everybody was sorry. Sorry was easy. Sorry was for suckers. — Gretchen McNeil

Yep, she was a disastrophe. Pathetic. — Gretchen McNeil

Penny Arcade said: At that time, the DRUG world and the ART world ran through each other. (1971 - 1974) — Legs McNeil

She felt like a baton getting passed along in a relay race, completely devoid of any control over her destiny. — Gretchen McNeil

As expected, the church lady grumbled something incoherent and put Bridget's call on hold. A peppy rendition of "City of God" blared as hold music just long enough for Bridget to start to sing along with the chorus. Catholic brainwashing at its best. — Gretchen McNeil

The progression of minor keys ... they're meant to represent imperfection ... "
I understand. But that is a philosophical conceit. All artists strive toward perfection or else lack fire."
Imperfections make the gods draw near. They crave to fix things. Same way some people leap in to finish other people's sentences. God loves nothing better than to break perfect things. — Carla Speed McNeil

Someone tells me I've been touched by Jesus, I remember."
"Not Jesus," he said in all seriousness. "The hand of God. — Gretchen McNeil

Rule Number Two, Monsignor. Do not show pity. — Gretchen McNeil

The only thing that made the music different was that we were taking lyrics to places they had never been before. The thing that makes art interesting is when an artist has incredible pain or incredible rage. The New York bands were much more into their pain, while the English bands were much more into their rage. The Sex Pistols' songs were written out of anger, wheras Johnny was writing songs because he was brokenhearted over Sable... — Legs McNeil

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe nothing's wrong and I'm just paranoid. I'll know when they come in. I'll see it in their faces. — Carla Speed McNeil

I thought you'd be better at this."
"Why?"
Bridget shrugged. "'Cause your dad's a cop."
"Right," Matt said, shifting his body so he wasn't blocking the light. "Why wouldn't he teach me Breaking and Entering 101?"
Bridget stifled a yawn. "Might be helpful now."
"Patience, grasshopper." Matt inserted a second metal prong into the lock. "I know a few tricks."
Bridget heard a soft click, and Matt raised his eyebrows in an unspoken "I told you so" before twisting the handle. The door swung open.
"Slick, MacGyver," Bridget whispered, patting him on the head. "Remind me to give you a cookie. — Gretchen McNeil

Only thing he'd been told was that Keeley was in bad shape and needed help. Under-fucking-statement of the year! His sister-in-law was lying in the middle of the street, bloody and wailing. Her words incomprehensible. And E wanted nothing more than to annihilate the person responsible for causing it. Though he was pretty sure he already knew. Heaven help Tarius McNeil when he got his hands on him. E — Lora Ann

Ed Friedman: [talking about Patti Smith] One time she told me, "Allen Ginsberg thought I was a cute boy and he tried to pick me up, so I said, "LOOK AT THE TITS, ALLEN! NOTICE THE TITS! — Legs McNeil

That record became very key for me, not just for what it said, and for how great it was, but also because I heard other people who could make good music without being any good at music. It gave me hope. — Legs McNeil

when men do something, it's an art, but when women do it, it gets relegated to being a craft. It's so annoying. — Gil McNeil

Most of her contemporaries simply don't understand why she has all these paper books, or indeed all this paper.
It's a hands-on craving. I can't remember anything unless I write it down or draw it. Many of our words for cognition are tactile words. We speak of "handling" a problem, "turning it over" in our minds, "grasping" an idea.
A keyboard just doesn't do it for all of us. — Carla Speed McNeil

RONNIE CUTRONE: I loved Jim Morrison dearly, but Jim was not fun to go out with. I hung out with him every night for just about a year, and Jim would go out, lean up against the bar, order eight screwdrivers, put down six Tuinals on the bar, drink two or three screwdrivers, take two Tuinals, then he'd have to pee, but he couldn't leave the other five screwdrivers, so he'd take his dick out and pee, and some girl would come up and blow his dick, and then he'd finish the other five screwdrivers and then he'd finish up the other four Tuinals, and then he'd pee in his pants, and then Eric Emerson and I would take him home. That was a typical night out with Jim. But when he was on acid, then Jim was really fun and great. But most of the time he was just a lush pill head. RAY MANZAREK: Jim was a shaman. — Legs McNeil

The old sound was alcoholic. The tradition was finally broken. The music is sex and drugs and happy. And happy is the joke the music understands best. Ultra sonic sounds on records to cause frontal lobotomies. Hey, don't be afraid. You'd better take drugs and learn to love PLASTIC. All diffrent kinds of plastic- pliable, rigid, colored, colorful, nonattached plastic. - Lou Reed (1965-1968) — Legs McNeil

The are times
When you may think that people are staring at you -
They are. — Carla Speed McNeil

I must try to remember that Art with Small Boys is best left to professionals, or people with ready access to tranquilizers. — Gil McNeil

Women are not on this planet exclusively to inspire men and make them happy. We have our own dreams and needs, our own shit to get done. — Gretchen McNeil

The force of your gaze has a weight. Even sunlight resting on the ground weighs something. Your attention presses against its object, your eye projects it like a headlight.
There's a flip side to it. Learn to go down inside yourself, dim the force of your presence. People's eyes will skate right over you.
They'll see you; they just won'tnotice you.
This works even if they're looking for you. — Carla Speed McNeil

She did, she really told her. She was pretty scary, actually,"

"The best women always are, love; you don't get to my age without realizing that. — Gil McNeil

How many of us have a love so true it spans eternity? A purity of need so clear it can remain strong in the face of all that the world throws at us? This
is Karen Ann McNeil, the woman who fell to Earth, the woman for whom the people in her life never gave up waiting. — Douglas Coupland