Quotessence
Home / Authors / Dave Matthes

Dave Matthes Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllBoozeDeathAmbitionBottleBraveryBloodAlcoholismChildhoodLoveCynicalDaydreamingCalmHateCrazyInnocenceLifeMusicComing Of AgeRomanceSex

Famous Dave Matthes Quotes

“Plans never go as planned, ever; that’s just how life is. People spend way too much time dreaming about a future they should be having more nightmares warning them against. But that doesn't mean you should let those bad dreams scare you away; all those nightmares want is respect. If you give them that, they’ll give you the space you need. Unless, of course, they’re the type of nightmares that have an appetite, then you’re fucked.”

PeopleLifeDeathHopeFearResponsibilityGrowing UpPlansDreamsFutureSmartBraveryNeglectNightmares
Book:Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
Create image

“~Posters with torn edges hanging from rotten walls~ The doctor told me something once she said STOP DRINKING I slapped her across the face with this NO I walked right out of that office went right down to the hole I told the bartender WHISKEY, MOTHERFUCKER he poured and he poured and I slapped my money down on that bar the man I had been driving around with he just sort of sat there next to this hooker she probably had something rotten way down there between her legs her eyes told of no soul I emptied the bottle down my throat and ordered some chips the bartender told me THEY'RE STALE and I give him a I DON'T FUCKIN' CARE, GIVE ME SOMETHIN' He slid me a ham sandwich dripping with cheap low-fat mayo and said ENJOY I went back to my room and talked all night so much conversation it turned the toilet bowl pale”

DeathBloodAmbitionBraveryCynicalAlcoholismBoozeBarBottleBar Nights
Book:Strange Rainfall on the Rooftops of People Watchers: Poems and Stories
Create image

“There's folly in her stride that's the rumor justified by lies I've seen her up close beneath the sheets and sometime during the summer she was mine for a few sweet months in the fall and parts of December ((( To get to the heart of this unsolvable equation, one must first become familiar with the physical, emotional, and immaterial makeup as to what constitutes both war and peace. ))) I found her looking through a window the same window I'd been looking through She smiled and her eyes never faltered this folly was a crime ((( The very essence of war is destructive, though throughout the years utilized as a means of creating peace, such an equation might seem paradoxical to the untrained eye. Some might say using evil to defeat evil is counterproductive, and gives more meaning to the word “futile”. Others, like Edmund Burke, would argue that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.” ))) She had an identity I could identify with something my fingertips could caress in the night ((( There is such a limitless landscape within the mind, no two minds are alike. And this is why as a race we will forever be at war with each other. What constitutes peace is in the mind of the beholder. ))) Have you heard the argument? This displacement of men and women and women and men the minds we all have the beliefs we all share Slipping inside of us thoughts and religions and bodies all bare ((( “Without darkness, there can be no light,” he once said. To demonstrate this theory, during one of his seminars he held a piece of white chalk and drew a line down the center of a blackboard. Explaining that without the blackness of the board, the white line would be invisible. ))) When she left she kissed with eyes open I knew this because I'd done the same Sometimes we saw eye to eye like that Very briefly, she considered an apotheosis a synthesis a rendering of her folly into solidarity ((( To believe that a world-wide lay down of arms is possible, however, is the delusion of the pacifist; the dream of the optimist; and the joke of the realist. Diplomacy only goes so far, and in spite of our efforts to fight with words- there are times when drawing swords of a very different nature are surely called for. ))) Experiencing the subsequent sunrise inhaling and drinking breaking mirrors and regurgitating just to start again all in all I was just another gash in the bark ((( Plato once said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Perhaps the death of us all is called for in this time of emotional desperation. War is a product of the mind; only with the death of such will come the end of the bloodshed. Though this may be a fairly realistic view of such an issue, perhaps there is an optimistic outlook on the horizon. Not every sword is double edged, but every coin is double sided. ))) Leaving town and throwing shit out the window drinking boroughs and borrowing spare change I glimpsed the rear view mirror stole a glimpse really I've believed in looking back for a while it helps to have one last view a reminder in case one ever decides to rebel in the event the self regresses and makes the declaration of devastation once more ((( Thus, if we wish to eliminate the threat of war today- complete human annihilation may be called for. )))”

DeathDestinyDreamsBloodBraveryDenialCynicalDaydreamingBoozeDeep End
Book:Wanderlust and the Whiskey Bottle Parallel: Poems and Stories
Create image

“The day I became a writer it wasn't the day a whore paid me in sex in exchange for one of my books which happened often and more and more as time went on it wasn't the first time someone actually paid for one of my books which happens less and less as time goes on It was the day I realized that everything is created by man God, Satan, Judas, phobias, excrement, even death even women everything is created by man So I said to myself shit, let me make something let me tape together some words and sentences and prose and predicates and the residual shit that sticks to my ass after I wipe and compose a new kind of thing But then I realized that others had discovered this for themselves as well And suddenly the world became a jungle Where everyone eats each other alive And shits out the same shit”

DeathBloodBraveryDenialWriterCynicalAgonyDaydreamingBoozeDeep End
Book:Wanderlust and the Whiskey Bottle Parallel: Poems and Stories
Create image

“An empty bottle of Jack is almost just as beautiful as a new and unopened bottle...in the same sense as looking down at muddied feet, and looking back the way you came. The journey you've taken to get to this point, the experiences and sights and music listened to, the shit scrolled down on paper. An empty bottle may hold more promise than a full one in that regard...”

DeathHopeAmbitionDestructionDrunkAlcoholismBoozeHalf FullHalf EmptyBottle
Book:Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
Create image

“With riddles as black as coals, and answers as invisible as our past, I can only depend upon the crest of the rolling wave I now traversed; a romance worshiped only by the dreamer in us all, a psithurism of trust making its way through the years of our ascension to one day climb above the kaleidoscopic canopy of this mortal coil.”

LoveRomanceDeathFateMysteryWindReincarnationRebirthMortal Coil
Book:In This House, We Lived, and We Died
Create image

“I've always felt that distant train whistles heard in the dead of night are the universe's way of letting us know the best days are neither ahead nor behind us...they're happening right now, cradled in the palms of our hands. But that doesn't change the fact that the whiskey, weed, and romance eventually runs out and the night will soon turn to day.”

LoveRomanceDeathNightMusicHistoryMoonInnocenceWeedWhiskeyDaydreamingBoozeTrainsWhistles
Book:Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
Create image

“When it happens and it hits hard, we decide certain things, and realize there's truth in all those dark, lonely days" He had an instantaneous look about him, a glimmer and a glint over those eyes, he knew how the world worked, and took pleasure in its wickedness. He would give a dime or two to those sitting on the street, he would tell them things like: "It won't get any better," and "Might as well use this to buy your next fix," and finally "It's better to die high than to live sober," His suit was pressed nicely, with care and respect, like the kind a corpse wears, he'd say that was his way of honoring the dead, of always being ready for the oncoming train, I liked him, he never wore a fake smile and he was always ready to tell a story about how and when "We all wake up alone," he said once, "Oftentimes even when sleeping next to someone, we wake up before them and they are still asleep and suddenly we are awake, and alone." I didn't see him for a few days, a few days later it felt like it'd been weeks, those weeks drifted apart from one another, like leaves on a pond's surface, and became like months. And then I saw him and I asked him where he'd been, he said, "I woke up alone one day, just like any other, and I decided I didn't like it anymore.”

LoveLifeRomanceDeathNightHopeSexSleepMusicHistoryMoonAmbitionDestructionTragedySuicideIntuitionPoint Of ViewDrunkInnocenceWeedReincarnationDrugsRebirthEroticEroticaAlcoholismCocaineWhiskeyDaydreamingHeroinPhoenixCokeBoozeHalf FullHalf EmptyTrainsBottleCrackParallelismWhistlesDave Matthes
Book:Ejaculation: New Poems and Stories
Create image

“We kissed and pressed up against each other, and I said to her “Ya know, my first kiss I ever had with anyone, it was with a boy, in the back of a school bus at night.” Lotty stopped kissing me for a second. “That’s disgusting,” she said. “What? It’s not like we had much choice in where we did it. Kinda had to sneak around in those days. Get it in when and where we could.” “No, I mean the fact that your first kiss was with a boy.” “What’s wrong with that?” “Boys are gross.”

BookDeathHateChildhoodComfortEternityGuitarInnocenceBeatDrums
Book:The Sounds From the Hills Go Away When the Sun Goes Down
Create image

“You’ll see no mercy from this place, kid,” Wendel Trope said, holding on to his bottle in his lap, “you’ve wandered into a tiny sliver of Hell. Fall asleep with your eyes closed and it’ll swallow you hole. Happens to everyone eventually though, it’s not something you can avoid by doing anything with your life differently. I haven’t found it yet, but supposedly there’s something… good about everything,” he laughed at that, drinking, letting the liquid spill out over his lips and onto his shirt, “I dunno, maybe it’s just under the dirt somewhere. Really deep down where they bury all the bodies.”

BookDeathHateChildhoodComfortEternityGuitarInnocenceBeatDrums
Book:The Sounds From the Hills Go Away When the Sun Goes Down
Create image

“Fag Bush Betty leaned against the sink and the supports whined under her weight, but she leaned anyway and picked stuff out of her teeth, using the mirror as a reference. She stopped after a few crevices and looked at herself. I’d seen a ton of women give themselves that look to themselves in the mirror before. Those eyes were searching for the answer. The way her eyebrows made her forehead wrinkle up, and her chapped lips and skin that was loose on parts of body gave her a very gaunt texture and appearance. I didn’t need a change of light or a particular aimed luminescence to see the extreme parts of her. I could see her spine, and every bone in it. She turned the faucet on and ran water into her hands, splashing it onto her face and letting the beads run down her cheeks, over the edge of her chin and down beside the veins in her neck. “I do that sometimes too,” I said. She turned her head with her back still facing me. “That, right there, stand above the sink and using the water like that,” I said, “never helps though, but it’s funny how it makes your eyes burn. I’ll take a shower sometimes and get real clean. I’ll wash everything. Later that night I’ll have a freak out and walk over to the sink, same as you, naked as hell. I’ll splash water on my face but still when it gets in my eyes it burns. Like there’s some dirt or sweat that I missed while in the shower. It always happens that way. I can’t seem to get everything, and my eyes just… burn. Sometimes the sweat really makes them sting. And there’s nothing you can really do about it, ya have to let it burn until it washes out.”

BookDeathHateChildhoodComfortEternityGuitarInnocenceBeatDrums
Book:The Sounds From the Hills Go Away When the Sun Goes Down
Create image

“Some people's glasses are half full. I'm the one drinking them. Some people have forgotten that Pluto is still a planet. I still remember my childhood. Some people are vegans. I have common sense. Some people call me Maurice. Some people call me the Gangsta of Love. Some people just want to live...but me, I'm the one still alive.”

LoveLifePhilosophyTruthDeathHateSexMusicForeverSadnessTearsTrustBandOptimismTragedySuicideSistersCynicism Reality
Book:Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
Create image

“Confidence don't mean jack shit in the real world, sis," she once said. I feel myself finding the courage to trust those words more and more with every twist of the knife. Coincidentally, last Tuesday afternoon I was involuntarily exposed to the punch line of an old wise tale that goes something like: "There's beauty that can be found in everything." But why can't the insensitive cunt who said that ever find the courage to look in the mirror? Because poopycock, one might say.”

LoveRomanceDeathHateBeautyMusicReflectionTragedySuicideManWomanStoryNarcissismEpicMirror
Book:Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
Create image