Quotes From "Flies To Wanton Boys" By Thomm Quackenbush

She is the sort of person who can do things she doesn’t know yet. There are things you know you know and you know you don’t know and you don’t know you know and you don’t know you don’t know. She may not know what she does know. Thomm Quackenbush

When colleges, both within the Hudson Valley and throughout the country, encouraged women to do little beyond attaining their Mrs. degree in Husbandry, Annandale offered rigorous and prestigious degrees irrespective of gender. Thomm Quackenbush

Shane lingered over a sickly sweet bit of doggerel comparing accepting Christ into one’s life with turning a pumpkin into a Jack-o-Lantern. “It sounds like God is seriously going to mutilate you.” Roselyn took the pamphlet from Shane, her eyes flickering over the text. “I always pictured it a bit more like a lobotomy than an evisceration. Thomm Quackenbush

I am able to separate the mythological aspects of my religion from the practical ones. Jesus, his sacrifice, the Gospels? Those are true to me. Angels, demons, burning bushes, Revelations? Primitive people trying to express the ineffable. I don’t need to be a biblical literalist to love my God. Thomm Quackenbush

I could either succumb to the nightmares I’ve raised or paint them. Thomm Quackenbush

Other young women were more than kind when it came to teaching him the basics of makeup artistry, but he did not like the idea of foundation, knowing enough alchemy to realize it had historically been made with lead and mercury. Thomm Quackenbush

Like measuring light as a particle or wave makes it what the observer expects, so too does assuming things about reality make it so. I fear the conclusion people gear up for is the wholesale demise of many millions unless this spiritual ennui ceases. How many catastrophes have people expected in the last few decades? How many times have humans expected the End Times? Thomm Quackenbush

Instead of the birds of the sky and beast of the field, the gods were more than men because Man needed them to be, for what could the world be if Man were the best of all creatures? Thomm Quackenbush

The Word no longer belonged to Man because they believed it did not. Man saw the gods alone as Creators and forgot that there had ever been any other way. Thomm Quackenbush

Angels are just beyond us. They’re creatures that biology doesn’t apply to. They don’t love humanity at all. They just love God. Thomm Quackenbush

You get a few of them together and don’t be surprised if pipes and drums appear out of nowhere. It is a sort of magic people believe in… Thomm Quackenbush

[His] leaving had stabbed her heart. This organ was not inclined to forgive her for vulnerability. Thomm Quackenbush

It’s about Nietzsche’s theory of universal debt. Your parents make it possible for you to believe a far better myth than Santa. They let you think that you, as a kid, don’t owe the world a thing. The world can give you, even if just for a few minutes, utter joy without requiring anything from you. It’s not about consumerism. As far as you know, no one buys you these presents. They come out of nothingness, with fantasies of elves attached. You aren’t required to be grateful to your parents or anything like that. They can give to you and nothing is required in return. When you get old enough, when you have kids, you get to enact this myth for them. It has nothing to do with any fat man in a red suit, no matter what we tell ourselves. It’s about owing nothing, and then realizing that you have to do this job of perpetuating this… this fantasy world, whether you like it or not. Thomm Quackenbush

Anyone who thinks traditional and modern interpretations of demons are frightening had better remember that real angels inspired awe because they were so ghastly. How we usually think of angel is all due to Renaissance painters trying to sex up the concept. Most Christians, if they saw an angel in the flesh, would go run for their guns. Thomm Quackenbush

Though her body fit with his like a puzzle piece, his mind was an ever-shifting riddle she felt she could study her whole life and never fully solve. She spent the most time touching him, caressing him, massaging the secrets from his shoulders and embarrassments from his lower back. Thomm Quackenbush

His mind was a tapestry constantly weaving and unweaving with the dedication of Penelope for her Odysseus. Thomm Quackenbush

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, out of the nothing came the Word and the Word was power. Every utterance of the Word gave form to the Void, starting with beings to utter the Word. There was no Adam, no Eve, and no need. What Man named was. Thomm Quackenbush

You belong to the world. Don’t be afraid to be a part of it. Thomm Quackenbush