Quotessence
Home / Authors / Joe Meno Books
Joe Meno

Joe Meno Books

Novelist

Office Girl

A source page for quotes linked to Joe Meno.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“Apples are kissing other apples. Gray cats are kissing other gray cats. Trees are kissing trees. You and I are not kissing. We work in an office together. We are both married to other people. It is okay because we only have ideas, you and I, about whether we should kiss or not. These ideas are both good and bad, probably. At work, we do not say these words aloud but make elaborate diagrams for one another. You write these words: Kissing you would be like this, and draw a picture of two butterflies being struck by lightning. I stare at it and wonder if you may be right. I do my own drawing and write, Kissing you would be like this, and sketch a picture of a man made of ice kissing a woman who is actually a stove. We have made hundreds of these drawings. We do not actually do any work.”

RomanceKissing
Book:Demons in the Spring
Create image

“Attention, God the Judge, God the Father, who Art in Heaven, give me one miracle, please. If You exist as I know You do, even if no one else in the world believes in You, please give me a brain tumor. Please tear my limbs from their sockets and let the backseat and my older sister be totally covered with blood. Please make me dumb and blind and deaf, please make me a martyr, please, dear heavenly Father. Tear my heart right from my chest. Drive spikes into my eyes and let hot lava shoot out of my mouth. Make me silent and thoroughly dead, but please hurry. Before we get home, before we reach the next stoplight, let the only sound be no sound, the silence of my death burning in the empty sky. If You are a mighty and true God, if You are not just a dream I have made up, please, before another hour, another minute passes, let the wire in my bra poke through my heart. Dear Lord, please, please, give me this one miracle. I have begged You every day, every evening, so please, let Your will be done, let Your will be done. Give me a gruesome death as fast as You possibly can. Thank you, God. Amen.”

Death
Book:The Great Perhaps
Create image

“It would always be a put-on, high school or not, for the whole rest of the world, for the rest of our lives. You couldn’t ever guess who someone was by the way they looked because, good or bad, the way they looked was always just a costume or an act. It was Halloween everyday, for most people anyway, just to feel like they weren’t alone, to belong, just to keep being happy maybe.”

High SchoolCliques
Book:Hairstyles of the Damned
Create image

“A book is actually a place, a place where we, as adults, still have the chance to engage in active imagining, translating word to image, connecting these images to memories, dreams, and larger ideas. Television, film, even the stage play, have already been imagined for us, but the book, in whatever form we choose to interact with it, forces us to complete it.”

StillsBookIdeasPlayDreamFilmFormForceMemoriesChanceStageTelevisionAdultsActiveTranslateConnectingStage Play
Author:Joe Meno
Create image

“In novels you're able to occupy character's internal thoughts and it's really hard to do in a film or a TV show. When you're reading a character's thoughts or when it's in first person, you're reading kind of their own story, so you have the opportunity to see what makes that character complex or complicated. And to me that's what the whole point of fiction is.”

FirstsKindPersonsHardWholeCharacterStoriesShowsAbleFilmReadingOpportunityFictionNovelTvsComplexesComplicatedInternalsTv ShowsFirst Person
Author:Joe Meno
Create image

“Sacrifice doesn't really exist on a national level anymore and that's a pretty new thing - most people aren't engaged nationally in some form of service and that changes the way you think about people in your country; you kind of think of them at a distance. And so there's that shift away from some sort of sacrifice - thinking of yourself as the most important thing in the world versus thinking of yourself as some sort of a whole.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayKindImportantCountryWholeFormLevelsSacrificeImportant ThingsDistanceEngagedNew ThingsVersusThinking Of YouThinking Of Yourself
Author:Joe Meno
Create image

“It is the strain of walking around the world-down the street, riding city buses and elevators, moving from place to place to place-and not knowing who might want to destroy you, who might like to fill your heart with poison, who might rob you and stab you, who might stand above you in the dark with a tarantula.”

WorldWantHeartMightMovingDarkCitiesKnowingStreetsWalkingAround The WorldPoisonBusRidingNot KnowingStrainElevatorsTarantulasCity Bus
Book:The Boy Detective Fails
Create image

“The more I write, the more I've come to realize that books have a different place in our society than other media. Books are different from television or film because they ask you to finish the project. You have to be actively engaged to read a book. It's more like a blueprint. What it really is, is an opportunity... A book is a place where you're forced to use your imagination. I find it disappointing that you're not being asked to imagine more.”

WritingBookDifferentUseFilmAsksOpportunityRealizingImaginationImagineMediaTelevisionProjectsEngagedOur SocietyDifferent PlaceDisappointingBlueprints
Author:Joe Meno
Create image

“In our town there is a secret spot where you can still see the stars at night, believe it or not. It is the only spot like that left, unclouded by the dwindling skyscrapers rising nearby. It is a good place to go to walk and talk in whispers. Following the little hill that rises from the park to a small clearing which overlooks the statue of the armless general on his bronze steed, most of us later remember this spot as the first place we knew we might be in love.”

FirstsBelieveLittlesStillsMightRememberNightLeftStarsWalksSecretTownsFollowingSpotsHillsParksRisingStatuesGood PlaceClearingPlaces To GoBronzeSkyscraperOur Town
Book:The Boy Detective Fails
Create image

“I don't like the fact that no one has any imagination anymore. It doesn't pay to be a dreamer because all they really want you to do is answer the phone. Nobody wants you to think about anything new or use your brain or make anything interesting because everything important has already been made. America is over; it's done being brilliant.Everything genius has already been built, like all the great works of art have already been produced.”

ThinkingWantArtMadeImportantDoneFactsUseAmericaImaginationAnswersInterestingPayBrainGeniusBuiltPhonesBrilliantOver ItWorks Of ArtDreamerGreat Work
Author:Joe Meno
Create image

“Funny as hell, searingly honest, and urgently real, Sam Pink's Rontel puts to shame most modern fiction. His writing perfectly captures the bizarre parade that is Chicago, with all its gloriously odd and wonderful people. This book possesses both the nerve of Nelson Algren and the existential comedy of Albert Camus.”

PeopleWritingBookRealFictionHellComedyWonderfulModernHonestShameOddNervesCaptureChicagoExistentialBizarreParadesNelsonFunny As Hell
Author:Joe Meno
Create image

“Above the dirt of an unmarked grave and beneath the shadow of the abandoned refinery, the children would play their own made up games: Wild West Accountants! in which they would calculate the loss of a shipment of gold stolen from an imaginary stagecoach, or Recently Divorced Scientists! in which they would build a super-collider out of garbage to try and win back their recently lost loves.”

LoveTryingChildrenMadePlayAgeGamesWinningLostLossShadowGoldScientistWestGravesAbandonedLost LoveImaginaryDirtStolenGarbageDivorcedAccountantsWild WestRefineryStagecoaches
Book:The Boy Detective Fails
Create image

“After school the very next day, El Rey's mobile home was gone. I laid in bed and wondered what happens to people when they go, if they become like shadows, if they fade away when they disappear from your life. The only thing I could see was the broken picket fence. The only sound I could hear was the cry of birds being killed in the night.”

PeopleIfsHomeHappensSchoolNightNextSoundGoneCryBrokenBedBirdShadowDisappearFadesNext DayFenceMobileFade AwayAfter SchoolPicket Fences
Author:Joe Meno
Create image

“Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow is a marvel, deftly examining the connections between art and everyday life. Andy Sturdevant's lively, unique inquiries into trust fund kids, co-opted flags, gubernatorial portraits, art in second-tier cities, and Upper Midwestern esoterica, brim with both wit and humor.”

ArtKidsCitiesUniqueConnectionsMeetingsEverydayWitFundFlagsPortraitsEveryday LifeInquiryLivelyExaminingSupperTrust FundsWit And HumorPotluck
Author:Joe Meno
Create image