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Karl Kristian Flores Quotes

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Famous Karl Kristian Flores Quotes

“It is to change a life. That’s why you do it. An enormous urge for change is the only reason to suffer. They can call your mission cliché, but someone needs to be hideous, otherwise we’ll all believe we’re perfect. It’s important that your work is important. There’s not enough time for anything less. Not that your life span is short, but the world’s life span is short. It is being destroyed every day. Sprint your nervous legs towards the finish line of language! And we’re not so good at capturing ourselves, but thank God, because if humans were fluent in human, new art would cease.”

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“There will always be more exciting things. Casinos will blink with avenues of exhilaration and offers to be devilish. The shelf of alcohol behind the bar looks like it may have a good read for you. A Chinese restaurant will buzz with customers and ticket orders. A booming concert may scream it has an extra spot, with strobe lights to hide your human. Partying people do not look like people who weep. You’ll think literature has no relevance to them. But eventually, the light will die down and the world will need to return home again. The fire will give out and the coals will glow and when the rising smoke clouds our vision, we will look for what we need: hearth. And there, the ignored is seen again. Asked for. There are exciting days, but the moment our flames die and we shiver honestly in our freezing universe, we will return to our homes, coming to what we need to, like mothers, like old love poems, like stringed instruments, like heroes.”

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“He clutched the handle of the knife with the same strength the gang members used to kick him. He was worthless, like a crumpled bit of trash thrown, but not worth picking up, that doesn’t even deserve a courteous foot nudge to hide. He was unseen, like the skin beneath the toga of a female statue made of stone. He was ugly, like the damaged face of the deformed stranger you try not to look at because you don’t want it in your memory. He was as soft as the pull-tab of a soda can, as easily broken as a straw wrapper, and as close to death as a baby slug crawling next to a group of kids at summer camp.”

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“My skin yields acne in double digits—a mountainous domain of genetic misfortune. Sometimes in the morning, the pimples get so bad that if I rinse my face towards the showerhead, the water breaks the pustule and I start to bleed. So I shower the same way I behave in public: with my head down. At bedtime, I get stiff because as soon as I turn to one side and sleep, I’ll wake up with a bloody pillowcase.”

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“And then there were his eyes. I couldn’t see him anymore. When I looked at Mitchell, at his black pupils that I swear are brown, there seems to be an emptiness, as if they are eyeballs with no person behind them. It’s like some part of him is lost in sin, or the thousands of parties he has attended, shrooms, or some evil act no soul could recover from.”

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“We have to be careful how we treat others. The human brain is a sensitive flesh that can be punctured by a single event. Based on your sentence, you can leave someone an insult they’ll never forget. You can sometimes hear this frailty when shy voices ask things like: “Can I have another bite?”, “Please call me back” or “What days do you work?”

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“Soldiers were shot outside a poet’s door and a bomber plane was on its way. So he took his manuscript, folded it, and locked it into a tin chest. There was a place east of town where it could be safely buried and found by another someday. He ran out during battle, was shot multiple times in his legs, slithered his way in a swamp of gushing muscle, and alas, could not make it. So, in desperation, he opened up the holes in his stomach and inserted the tin chest where his poems lie safe and died there. One day, a medic will read about birds that chirped on emerald trees.”

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“And I audition and I see people in the waiting room. And I can’t help but think: there’s a very slim chance people like acting,' said Eden. 'It has too many other things. Attention. Escape. People. Spotlight. But the actual thing of acting, the kernel, has to belong to fewer people than there are actors in this city. They were kids lacking something at a young age and the splendid world of the theatre offered them that, but as soon as they found love, drama, stability, or attention from another source, they abandoned the Theatre. Imagine how sad that feels—to be abandoned. To be told you are loved, again and again, and then be told it was never the case.”

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“When you're sad, everything sad builds up. The most painfully truthful thoughts arise, uninvited and unforgiving. The brain, a devoted soldier, always successful, somehow manages to rapidly search its host's darkness. There is no escape to what is next. First, all the buried thoughts you locked in a gloomy chest are released. Second, you begin crying over what you never wanted to admit. Suddenly, you begin to cry over things you did not even know actually deeply hurt you. And sometimes, the wet physicalization of your sorrow isn't enough. Instead, a violent madness stirs in your chest and your head is polluted with a red so angry, your jaw opens to fill the earth with a scream so rare you lose a little of yourself. Your roaring voice trails in pieces, like bullet fragments in flesh, to complete the song that is Loss.”

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“He hated walking. It was the most excruciating activity in his day; that was, because of the screaming. You see, passing strangers on a walk is terribly painful for people like Andrei, whose every muscle fights to pretend their mind is not yelling questions like: “DO YOU GO LEFT?! OR DO I? Do I know you? Are you looking at me? Do I look familiar to you? Look down! Peruse the floor, scan left now right. Where are your headphones? It would have been so much easier to look busy if you had just remembered to bring your headphones! They’re coming closer. Don’t look at them. Rub your eyes. Sniffle. Good. Good...We made it. OH GOD ANOTHER ONE.”

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“Andrei understood people were social animals who needed others to survive, but arguments that used biological outlines of life always creeped him out. He did not want to consider himself a thing that needed to gather in a group, or regard other evolutionary facts of his species, like needing to procreate or choosing a partner to make one feel safe. No. There were things he could choose between, like Earl Grey or jasmine green tea, children or no children, or having any friends at all.”

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“This blond Brett boy was very tall. And in his disposition seemed an incompleteness. People who talked to Brett usually first referenced his height. Thus, a compliment or statement regarding his figure was the first thing he heard. Andrei could imagine that the first fraction of every conversation in his life had to do with how tall he was. And since conversations did not last that long, Brett had mastered the form of receiving the compliment, but compared to folks with a shorter body, had a considerably lower percentage of conversations in his life about other things. It was merely the way it had turned out. The world acknowledged Brett’s height and Brett monopolized this attention and innocently adjusted by mentioning his height for all sorts of topics—for being the butt of jokes, for flirtation, to compete in the quiet dance of masculine dominance in rooms that men knew so well. Andrei located the offness to him—a certain naïve, boyish way Brett spoke and moved. If Andrei and Brett had been the same age, not in a hotel restroom, and most importantly, friends, Andrei would have offered him some advice: “Accept comments on your height quickly, my friend, and then never address it again. Change the topic fast and carry on. You don’t want to lose out on the higher picture.” And the same words would apply to every living thing: “Rather than be swayed, strike through everything you do. Your mighty sword is your identity, not mirrors, reflections, or other eyeballs.”

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“Holding onto feelings was far more delicate than holding onto words. Feelings were carried, like invisible fairies caught by chance in the woodlands that one holds in their hand, and feels its weight, but cannot see. They were ethereal, exclusively and tenderly known to the people involved, and usually deeper and more colorful than speech, but more prone to extinction from doubt. Words, alternatively, could be written down, were easy to remember, and worked well for stories— but they limited feelings by nature and could be exaggerated or confused by newer words.”

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“We cannot know everything. We cannot do everything. We are what we chose to have known. We are what we ended up doing. This condition is why you could look around and tell people apart. Time is ticking and we are all fugitives fleeing from random death. And we all flee differently. Thus, with the responsibility of choice, humanity is magical this way.”

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“Organize their money on a chopping board. Sort out your worth. $15,000 for outdated textbooks K-12. $1,000 for a lifetime of flu vaccinations. $8 an hour to help someone else make money. $300 a year for food coupons. $1,000 additional salary for any job that has a chance of expected death. $600 co-pay on medication for an illness they cause you. $2,000 for social security. $15,000 for pension. $150,000 for the average life insurance policy. $250,000 for a doctor’s fatal mistake. $350,000 if the doctor made it in a different state. 2/5 of a soul lost in the workplace. 3/5 of a soul lost to fuck for food. $4,000 to bury someone in the soil. And there you have you. Easy to make. Affordable. Special.”

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“The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and other bureaus reserve that a budget for a human life is worth anywhere from 4-10 million dollars. Like a sports car. Like a construction site. Or an airplane. As if the mysterious gift of consciousness could fit in the box of a W-2 form. To them, we are 4 inches of digital ink on a computer screen. Money: if we can’t get rid of it, we can at least admit it doesn’t deserve us.”

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“The problem with college students is that they come into university not knowing what they love, but are handed vocabulary and concepts about their chosen passion, which equips them with rich arguments and rich words that end up fooling people they love something when they are really just passionate about someone else’s passion. Sometimes, people use knowledge as a seat belt to strap themselves in a car that they weren’t supposed to be in. They hold onto mission statements or causes and regurgitate ideas with such great articulation that you (and they) could almost believe they really loved their careers.”

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“Beside him was a small employee sweeping the floor, just by Andrei. The cleaner clenched the broom with effort and quick movements. She moved forcefully, with so much vigor that one saw a girl scout. But wrinkles had already formed on her neck, that sweated, moistening her black wig. Andrei stared, noticing she was damn good at her job, but too good. She would bend her legs to sweep the difficult corners of the shop. The woman would adjust the picture frames on the wall and wipe down the chairs, tasks which were not part of her required duties. Whenever her co-workers talked casually, the woman steered the conversation to the topic of the conditions of the store, which she knew, or to certain customers, who she knew, or to how business was, which she knew. She drove back home with a smile, knowing she’d done a great job that day. “They need me! Otherwise, who else would have caught the slip hazard by the trash? No one, not even my manager!” she would say before bed. She was naturally helpful. It was tragic to see that kind employee, happy like a little child, be so great at some stupid shop, when in her pumped a heart large enough to fuel the future, a forest, or a country. There was no structure of life, or invention yet created, whose mechanism could righteously allocate the innocence and love embedded in the warm blood of a human being. There deserved to be. She was sacred. But the world, decidedly corporate, had seized her, eaten her up, devouring what was left of the lively.”

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“And so now. Listen to yourself. Tune in. What do you want?’ “What do I want?” he repeated. He thought. And instantly, he knew. Andrei’s heart pounded while the suite was still. In fact, it was the type of stillness that men and women knew all too well. That familiar, embarrassing calm, which in seconds usually soared an unquestionable fact. Minds in that room could only come to the single conclusion Andrei feared to admit. “I want to...” And Andrei, taking Mars’ hands in his, bent over and kissed her with an angle of awe and the timing of gratitude. “Right,” she said, knowingly. “Did you know I was going to do that? Was that weird?” “Why explain feelings, Andrei?” she professed sincerely. “We’ll end up dissatisfied. If you feel the truth, so do I. That’s how rooms work. You have to keep doing that. Listening carefully, then acting fiercely. It’s a contrasting relationship.”

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“His eyes were wet, like a receipt machine that prints paper pain. His wounds soaked his shirt merlot. His mouth leaked like a broken faucet. The left side of his face bruised as if someone had laid his head flat and dropped truck tires on them. His ribs felt like a bad science project made of toothpicks. Andrei staggered up Hilgard Avenue toward the church and by the time the cops turned around to seize him, he was gone. “Where’s the kid?” said Gonzales.”

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“I fell in love with the girl who fell in line for one serving of strawberries," he admitted. A series of thoughts swirl around Miguel’s head of the girl waiting in line with one medium-sized tub of strawberries. The image of it. He asked: “Was it her persistence of wanting the fruit? Was it the youthfulness of the fruit? Was it the mystery of wondering how she’d eat them—on the grass outside or at home or in the car? Why? Was it wanting to know if she felt stupid herself for waiting in such a long line? Or wanting to know if she at any point felt like abandoning the line? Was it the simplicity of someone who knows what they want? The pleasantness of going to the market and not being seduced by other treats? Was it her patience?” Charm is so dissatisfying.”

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“She threw her head back and released her breath. Her series of chuckles was like a fragmented moan dribbling freely into the climate of a now happier milieu. It had been a while since Mickey’s Pub had heard a noise that could penetrate through buzzing without force, that dominated loud men with earned grace. The first drop of her pearl laughter seeped into Maxwell’s ears and dyed his eardrums pink. For a long time, the maintenance of this color would be his heartfelt mission.”

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“Let us wish that the speed granted by our technologies saves us plenty of time for life ahead...Yet, where to is this destination of life that makes the observation of it so dreadful? The impatient people who rush for the new are like fools chasing a mirror, wondering whose face they’d find when they catch it. Nothing awaits us. Convenience will one day reveal that we have nowhere to go, except towards each other.”

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