10 Quotes & Sayings By Damon Suede

Damon Suede is an author, actor, and director of the feature film, "I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER." A survivor of childhood sexual abuse, he is now a hard-hitting advocate for victims of child abuse and their families. He is also a political activist, speaking on behalf of victims' rights and preventing child sexual abuse. He has appeared on numerous television shows and has been featured in numerous magazine articles, including: "The Spotlight" (the largest circulation magazine for children), "Parenting Today," "The Seattle Times," and "The Advocate." Damon is also a motivational speaker who hosts family education seminars and workshops throughout the country.

1
Love hurts. Think back over romance novels you’ve loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone. So don’t just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don’t satisfy your hero’s desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth. Misery accompanies love. It’s no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we’ll find a way out of the dark. Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight. . Damon Suede
It was the list of activities thing. Like the menu...
2
It was the list of activities thing. Like the menu with price, only I'm not the restaurant; I'm the meal. Damon Suede
I want you to move in with me, man.
3
I want you to move in with me, man."" Nah. I appreciate it, but I need to get a place of my own. I'm a grownup. Damon Suede
4
Bravery usually looked stupid from the outside. Damon Suede
5
Griff held his breath, waiting for it, knowing the axe would fall and he‘d start dying as soon as he walked out the fucking door, and Dante would just grin and joke and try to forget what they had done together in this room. Damon Suede
6
Romance is the literature of hope. Damon Suede
7
And Lord knows there are more than enough rooms to love someone properly, even if they don't all have floors or ceilings. Damon Suede
8
Pop culture. Nobody does bullshit better than us. Right? China took over manufacturing. And the Middle East has us on fossil fuels. That's just geography and politics. We're a nation of whacko immigrants. Scavengers and con men. We crossed the ocean on faith, stole some land and stone-cold made up a whole country out of nothing but balls and bullshit. Superhero comics got invented by crazy genius Jews who showed up and revamped the refugee experience into a Man of Steel sent from Krypton with a secret identity. Damon Suede
9
If your heart is broken, do you have a phantom heart? Damon Suede