how was the funeral?

normally people who die stay in their graves,

there is a secret that the casinos possess, a secret they hold and guard and prize, the holiest of their mysteries.

most people do not gamble to win money, after all, although that is what is advertised, sold, claimed, and dreamed.

i believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating.

that is the eternal folly of man; to be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones.

the important thing to understand about american history is that it is fictional, a charcoal-sketched simplicity for children, or the easily bored.

at night, you’re rubbing yourself against worm food. no offense meant.

you have no idea what i can believe.

gods die, and when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered.

some grifts last forever, others are swallowed soon enough by time and by the world.

i don’t like you.

i’m alive. i’m not dead. remember?

none of this can actually be happening.

if they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted.

i can believe things that are true, and i can believe things that aren’t true, and i can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.

they die like men, after all.

this is a bad land for gods.

damn straight i’m a hustler.

we don’t need anyone to believe in us.

it’s going to be a white christmas.

they only tell the truth, and the truth is not what people want to hear.

i’ve come too far for more lies.

i’m going now. it will be better if i go.

i’m cold.

in the unlikely event of my death, you will hold my vigil.

you’re dead, babe.

like i said, don’t piss off those bitches in the airports, or they’ll haul your sorry ass back here before you can spit.

i have as many names as there are winds.

it’s a sacrifice, of sorts.

one day every soldier in the empire has to shower in the blood of your sacrificial bull.

you work for me now.

if hell is other people, then purgatory is airports.

if you just hang in there, someday they’re going to have to let you out.

that boy was one lucky son of a virgin.

i used to think that too. now i’m not so sure.

you’re not so prejudiced anymore.

life is a game, a cruel joke.

i mean, it’s not such a big deal.

i’ll work for you.

so what are you? a two-bit con artist?

you people talk about the living and the dead as if they were two mutually exclusive categories. life and death are different sides of the same coin.

that is merely the easy lie that gets them through the enormous, ever-open, welcoming doors.

you see, i am the only one of us who brings in any money.

if it makes you more comfortable, you could simply think of it as metaphor.

all we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory.

it all depends on where you are.

i need someone to look out for my best interests.

it’s easy, there’s a trick to it, you do it or you die.

we are not friends.

anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly.

either you’ve been forgotten, or you’re scared you’re going to be rendered obsolete.

you should know that when we’re done, i’ll be gone.

if you piss me off, i’ll be gone.

if you move and act in the material world, then the material world acts on you.

he’s hustling you, he’s a hustler.

some things may change; people however, people stay the same.

the best thing—perhaps the only good thing—about being in prison was a feeling of relief.

even for my kind, pain still hurts.

come and sit by me.

i’m impressed, you have class.

isn’t she the one who killed her children?

if we’re still loved and remembered, something else a whole lot like us comes along and takes our place and the whole damn thing starts all over again.

we just keep going anyhow, it’s what we do.

i can lie to them, tell them what they want to hear.

there’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right.

i got a son, and you remind me of him.

would you believe that all the gods that people have ever imagined are still with us today?

people only fight over imaginary things.

it’s easier to kill people, when you’re dead yourself.

we have some unresolved issues to address.

i shall make sure that your needs are adequately taken care of.

it would distress me equally, my dear.

we don’t always remember the things that do no credit to us.

you want to talk about it?

ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.

all your questions can be answered, if that is what you want.

first, you go down on your knees. then i hit you a blow with it, so you don’t get up again.

if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end.

people gamble to lose money.

if i win, i get to knock your brains out, with a sledgehammer.

too much talking these days. talk talk talk. this country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.

i can believe anything.

they are gone, all gone, but their names and their images remain with us.

there are accounts that, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply.

which path should i take? which one is safe?

if i tell you what i’ve learned you won’t think that i’m a nut?

it’s what people do.

if you didn’t have a death sentence, then prison was, at best, only a temporary reprieve from life.

you hurt people who need to be hurt.

it’s not easy to believe.

the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless.

is that you?

so, you’re praying?

i told you i would tell you my names. this is what they call me.

fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes.

i can see nothing romantic in a death sentence.

i want to rest now.

candy really did taste better when i was a kid.

religions are places to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world.

i think i’ll stay right here for now.

religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all.

the really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is—without question—the right thing to do, and that is what makes them dangerous.

gods are great, but the heart is greater.

once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.

which way would you walk—the way of hard truths or the way of fine lies?

i want nothing. no heaven, no hell, no anything. just let it end.

i got to tell you, you don’t look too bright.

i guess you’re going to ask what i’m doing here.

i was thinking more of how you died.

we may not die easy and we sure as hell don’t die well, but we can die.

for the most part, history is uninspected, unimagined, unthought, a representation of the thing, and not the thing itself.

what i say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore.

keep safe. i would not like to hear that you were gone for good.

the rest of them know what they are.

be brave.

have you ever looked at peas in a pod? i mean, really looked at them?

the quickest way is sometimes the longest.

you’re not dead, but i’m not sure you’re alive, either. not really.