92 Quotes About Roman Payne

Cities were always like people, showing their varying personalities to the traveler. Depending on the city and on the traveler, there might begin a mutual love, or dislike, friendship, or enmity. Where one city will rise a certain individual to glory, it will destroy another who is not suited to its personality. Only through travel can we know where we belong or not, where we are loved and where we are rejected. . Roman Payne

I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.).. 'I spoke to three scholars, ' [the character says 'at last.']. .two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]'. .I can see that he's excited. [narrator]'. .Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.( Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.) Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho. . Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation–none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else–suggests that he is not happy!. Roman Payne

Ô, Wanderess, WanderessWhen did you feel your most euphoric kiss? Was I the source of your greatest bliss? Roman Payne

The day came when she discovered sex, sensuality, and literature; she said, 'I submit! Let my life be henceforth ruled by poetry. Let me reign as the queen of my dreams until I become nothing less than the heroine of God. Roman Payne

Ô, Muse of the Heart’s Passion, let me relive my Love’s memory, to remember her body, so brave and so free, and the sound of my Dreameress singing to me, and the scent of my Dreameress sleeping by me, Ô, sing, sweet Muse, my soliloquy! Roman Payne

Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth. Roman Payne

Champagne arrived in flûtes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts.. for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles.. these things fill men's hearts with joy and remind one that life’s bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul. . Roman Payne

I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one. Roman Payne

English:Ô, take this eager dance you fool, don’t brandish your stick at me. I have several reasons to travel on, on to the endless sea: I have lost my love. I’ve drunk my purse. My girl has gone, and left me rags to sleep upon. These old man’s gloves conceal the hands with which I’ve killed but one! Francais: Idiot, prends cette danse ardente, au lieu de tendre ton bâton. J'en ai des raisons de voyager encore sur la mer infinie: J'ai perdu l'amour et j'ai bu ma bourse. Ma belle m'a quitté, j'ai ses haillons pour m'abriter. Mes gants de vieillard cachent les mains d'un fameux assassin! . Roman Payne

Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer? Roman Payne

Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page. Roman Payne

Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour. Roman Payne

I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so thin there was barely even skin to pinch, and every time I held them, I worried I would snap them in two. But for all of these: where they had merited my love was in their delicious smell. Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour. . Roman Payne

Ô, the wine of a womanfrom heaven is sent, more perfect than allthat a man can invent. When she came to my bed and begged me with sighsnot to tempt her towards passion nor actions unwise, I told her I’d spare her and kissed her closed eyes, then unbraided her body of its clothing disguise. While our bodies were nude bathed in candlelight fine I devoured her mouth, tender lips divine;and I drank through her thighs her feminine wine.Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent. Roman Payne

She was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She never cried because she was afraid that something 'would' happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, 'would not' happen. Roman Payne

This was how it was with travel: one city gives you gifts, another robs you. One gives you the heart’s affections, the other destroys your soul. Cities and countries are as alive and feeling, as fickle and uncertain as people. Their degrees of love and devotion are as varying as with any human relation. Just as one is good, another is bad. Roman Payne

All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art. Roman Payne

Sexual frenzy is our compensation for the tedious moments we must suffer in the passage of life. 'Nothing in excess, ' professed the ancient Greeks. Why if I spend half the month in healthy scholarship and pleasant sleep, shouldn't I be allowed the other half to howl at the moon and pillage the groins of Europe's great beauties? Roman Payne

Favoring 'resolution' the way we do, it is hard for us men to write great love stories. Why?, because we want to tell too much. We aren’t satisfied unless at the end of the story the characters are lying there, panting. Roman Payne

You are like a god, like an immortal one, ' she whispered to me one night in our bed, her naked body pressed to mine, our sweat golden and glistening in the candlelight. 'Oh, my love, ' I whispered back to her, 'I am more mortal than all. It seems that a part of me dies every night that I lie with you. Roman Payne

The moment her hymen was plucked from her body in the wilderness, Her soul was taken from sanity. Roman Payne

I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure. Roman Payne

All that I ask out of life is that it be constant and unending euphoria. Roman Payne

Even the memory of cradling her in my arms is pure euphoria. And all that I ask out of life is that it be constant and unending euphoria. Roman Payne

The poet believed that 'Beauty' first entered the world not at its creation, nor with the first garden, the first sunrise, the birth of the first man and woman and their first sexual act. The poet believed that 'Beauty' entered the world the day the first child blushed. Roman Payne

Ô, wine! , the truth-serum so potent that all those who wish to live happy lives should abstain from drinking it entirely! ... except of course when they are alone. Roman Payne

When I was younger, I would cling to life because life was at the top of the turning wheel. But like the song of my gypsy girl, the great wheel turns over and lands on a minor key. It is then that you come of age and life means nothing to you. To live, to die, to overdose, to fall in a coma in the street.. it is all the same. It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death… And they should! ..For they are 'in' life. . Roman Payne

Without knowing why or how, I found myself in love with this strange Wanderess. Maybe I was just in love with the dream she was selling me: a life of destiny and fate; as my own life up until we met had been so void of enchantment. Those things: mystery, fate, enchantment.. they are things that young people offer us as soon as we get close to them. And if we're not careful, we can be seduced by, and drawn back into, the youthful world they preside over. Roman Payne

After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my head–for creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks. Roman Payne

What a face this girl possessed! – Could I neither die then nor gaze at her face every day, I would need to recreate it through painting or sculpture, or through fatherhood, until a second such face could be born. Roman Payne

I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I've only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a "serious" novel. Roman Payne

Although I love elegant parties, dancing and dining and spending the night with a sweet woman in my arms, my life belongs to literature. Roman Payne

Looking back on my life, I sigh. The caprice of youth goes with the wind, I’ve no regrets. Roman Payne

This was the first time I thought of S– that day. Her music was beautiful, her voice was beautiful, her body was beautiful. Even the dirty little pads of her feet were beautiful. I cursed myself then. For once, heaven had sent me Beauty in its most perfected form and I abandoned it. She might not have been a girl after all but an angel: a force to guide me on this hazardous path of life I hurry down. How can life be hazardous if it can only end in death?. Roman Payne

The disappearance of the presence of beauty is the most despairing of events on this time-wheel of ours that rolls onward towards death. Roman Payne

I used to be a poet. My words were traded in marketplaces like pieces of gold. Merchants bought my verses for as much as they paid for saffron and Indian jade. Now I am old...drunk on wine and candle fumes. Alone in this barren room, I speak my psalms to the night air so as to entertain moths before they go off to die. I used to be a poet and my words were gold. Roman Payne

Life is Not a perpetual climb towards Greatness.For our family, ourselves, and friends, It is but sad Decay, so, Let every girl die after her Hebé (Ἥβη).And every man after his Aristeia(ἀριστεία). Roman Payne

Wherever you go in the next catastrophé Be it sickroom, or prison, or cemet’ry Do not fear that your stay will besolit’ry Countless souls share your fate, you’ll have company! Roman Payne

May a man live well-enough and long-enough, to leave many joyful widows behind him. Roman Payne

I wandered everywhere, through cities and countries wide. And everywhere I went, the world was on my side. Roman Payne

In my errant life I roamed To learn the secrets of women and men, Of gods and dreams. I've known all the countries of our world, I've lived a thousand lives: Many lives I lived in love, Other lives I squandered. For in my life I never traveled, All I did was wander. Roman Payne

I was forced to wander, having no one, forced by my nature to keep wandering because wandering was the only thing that I believed in, and the only thing that believed in me. Roman Payne

From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent, It only can be squandered. Roman Payne

[As a very young man, I thought] of Europe as a place that could not exist except in the imagination, in glorious dreams, and through the careful lies of the silver screen. Roman Payne

All that I desire in life are three... A wilderness: A beach on the sun-drenched sea, A puff of opium, And thee. Roman Payne

The comedy in our lives was those first few weeks we lived together in Paris: Our bodies desired one another, our souls opened for one another. We experienced all of the happiness and anguish of first love. Those first few weeks in Paris, we barely touched lips; yet the few times we did, it had the force of a collision of stars. Roman Payne

Ah, youth! It was a beautiful night... The moon was out of orbit. The stars were awry. But everything else was exactlyas it should have been. Roman Payne

Let these men sing out their songs, they've been walking all day long, all their fortune's spent and gone...silver dollar in the subway station;quarters for the papers for the jobs. Roman Payne

Being the Novelist-in-Residence at a riad hotel in the kasbah of an Arabic North African city is a lot like trying to write one’s memoirs on shreds of napkins in a nuthouse. Roman Payne

A writer needs to ingest love to be passionate. Passion is a metabolite of love, and good writing is an active metabolite of passion. Roman Payne

The birthing wolf, Her heart fed with tenderness, Gave forth from ripe brown nipples, Food to feed the universe. Roman Payne

Everything was brighter and more colorful in those years, as if my childhood was ending in an explosion of unreal passion that made my life feel sacred and holy. Roman Payne

No man sings as beautifully as when his song is accompanied by a woman’s voice. Roman Payne

What a face this girl possessed! –could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born. Her face, at once innocent and feral, soft and wild! Her mouth voluptuous. Eyes deep as oceans, her eyes as wide as planets. I likened her to the slender Psyché and judged that the perfection of her face ennobled everything unclean around her: the dusty hems of her bunched-up skirt, the worn straps of her nightshirt; the blackened soles of her tiny bare feet, the coal-stained balcony bricks upon which she sat, and that dusty wrought-ironwork that framed her perch. All this and the pungent air! –almost foul, with so many odors. Ô, that and the spicy night! …Pungency, spice, filth and night, dust and light; all things dark did blossom in sight; flower and bloom, the night has its pearl too–the moon! And once a month it will make the face of this tender girl bloom. Roman Payne

In general I strive for greatness and rational achievement, but I admit to you I’ve a terrible fondness for women, a tendency towards drunkenness, and a weakness for the fumes of the poppy–opium and other miserable beauties. Roman Payne

We look up to see if it is day or night. If stars burn cool and moon does shine, We take to smoke divine and wine. If breath of sun does belch its heat, we boil coffee and prepare to eat. Roman Payne

Our eyes will know the heavens if our lips stay for each other. Roman Payne

My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight. Her hands asleep beside her. Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth. I give her my troth, for our love is whole I sing her beauty in my soul Roman Payne

In Sanskrit, there exists no word for ‘The Individual’ (L’Individu). En Grèce antique, il n’y avait aucun mot pour dire ‘Devoir’ (Duty). In French, the word for ‘Wife’ is the same as the word for ‘Woman.’ En anglais, nous n’avons aucun mot semblable à l’exquise ‘Jouissance! Roman Payne

She wakes in a puddle of sunlight. Her hands asleep beside her. Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth. I give her my trothfor our love is whole;her breath is my wine, her scent is my soul. Roman Payne

Spanish rain, A maiden’s dress, Apothecary pills And ancient thrills; Melancholy kills A girl’s caress. Roman Payne

I sat up in the strange bed fearing it had been a dream, afraid I would never see her again. Not because I wanted anything from her, only her presence. The disappearance of the presence of beauty is the most despairing of events on this time-wheel of ours that rolls onward towards death. Roman Payne

Spanish rain, A maiden’s dress, Apothecary pills And ancient thrills; Melancholy kills A girl’s caress.(– Roman Payne; Valencia, Spain, November 2nd 2012) Roman Payne

Wanderess, Wanderess, weave us a story of seduction and ruse. Heroic be the Wanderess, the world be her muse. Roman Payne

I didn’t know then that young girls were a sort of poison, infectious to the man of age; and that men of age justly take woman of age to cure themselves of the diseases of youth. Roman Payne

My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight. Her hands asleep beside her. Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth. I give her my lifefor our love is whole I sing her beauty in my soul. Roman Payne

Wine gives one 'ideas, ' whereas champagne gives one 'strategies. Roman Payne

I believe you can consider yourself a successful prose writer when the number of words you put on a page each day is equal to, or greater than, the number of milligrams of mind-altering chemicals you ingest in that day. (Note: this rule does not apply to poets who write in the short-form. You, my boys and girls, are free as birds! ) Roman Payne

Coffee, my delight of the morning; yoga, my delight of the noon. Then before nightfall, I run along the pleasant paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg. For when air cycles through the lungs, and the body is busy at noble tasks, creativity flows like water in a stream: the artist creates, the writer writes. Roman Payne

My girl was mad and I loved her. Upon a night, she read my poetry; and kissing me madly she cried, ‘You are a genius, my love! ’ To which I replied, ‘My girl, ’ whispering, ‘Every doctor in this land with a prescription pad is more of a genius than I. Roman Payne

Who worries for dying? If I close my eyes tonight, I will either dream, or not, or my eyes will open and I will be here again. And if none of those happen, and I do not wake? Who worries for dying? Roman Payne

She was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She was brave, and I never once saw her cry out of fear. She never cried because she was afraid that something would happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, would not happen… She believed if I gave in to make her fortune become realized, the world would be ultimately profound and beautiful. I guess I held out because I feared the realization of her fortune would mean the destruction of us together. And each time she cried, I fell a little more deeply in love with her. Roman Payne

What a face this girl possessed! –could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born. Roman Payne

A girl without braidsis like a city without bridges. Roman Payne

Somewhere I’d heard, or invented perhaps, that the only pleasures found during a waning moon are misfortunes in disguise. Superstition aside, I avoid pleasure during the waning or absent moon out of respect for the bounty this world offers me. I profit from great harvests in life and believe in the importance of seasons. Roman Payne

It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow. What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood! One would say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids. How coldly burns our sun! One would say its rays of light are shards of snow, one imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day. One would say she is a woman who wears a gown of winter frost that blinds the eyes. Helplessness has weakened me. Wandering has wearied my legs. . Roman Payne

Champagne arrived in flûtes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts… for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles… these things fill men’s hearts with joy and remind one that life’s bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul. Roman Payne

She was so delicate that, while we sat beneath the linden branches, a leaf would fall and drift down and touch her skin, and it would leave a bruise. So as we sat in the afternoon hour, beneath that fragrant linden bower, I had to chase all of the leafs that fell away. Roman Payne

The hour of spring was dark at last, sensuous memories of sunlight past, I stood alone in garden bowersand asked the value of my hours. Time was spent or time was tossed, Life was loved and life was lost. I kissed the flesh of tender girls, I heard the songs of vernal birds. I gazed upon the blushing light, aware of day before the night. So let me ask and hear a thought: Did I live the spring I’d sought? It's true in joy, I walked along, took part in dance, and sang the song.and never tried to bind an hourto my borrowed garden bower;nor did I once entreata day to slumber at my feet. Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song, like morning birds they pass along, o'er crests of trees, to none belong;o'er crests of trees of drying dew, their larking flight, my hands, eschew Thus I’ll say it once and true.. From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent, It only can be squandered. . Roman Payne