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Famous Karl Kristian Flores Quotes

“There are two types of kindnesses in the world. The first type of kindness is what some people are born with: an innocent, inherent joy to be alive. It’s nurtured with the right family. It laughs and it dances, on playgrounds and nightclubs, girlish and boyish. The second type of kindness is realized. It is born after countless heartbreaks, traumas, and molded by the darkest thoughts the brain can juggle. Add some life experience and a few good people gone, and you’ve got yourself a person who decides to be kind. Margo was the second. And you could tell by the way she spoke—an attentive politeness, a pain in between her blinks, and a tranquil surrender to how pathetic and beautiful we all are. You could feel all the people she carried with her. It was as if you were somehow meeting them all. And if we want to talk instincts, I could sense there was a quiet battle inside her. She wasn’t a saint. Her kindness wasn’t wholly pure, but it tried. It can be like a veil of effort to almost convince ourselves a person can be good, and I think “almost” is as far as we get. In some way, the same as completely good.”

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“We are in the indie age of “don’t love ideas of people,” but ideas of people are all we have when they’re old and gray and forgetful and smelly," said Miguel. "It isn’t fair to punish someone for loving an idea when everything around us is an idea, the only difference is people change ideas, and I, quite frankly, am excited to see what certain people could change to. I love their intervals and their points.”

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“In case you didn’t know I too went home after the ceremony And replayed the silent pauses of our failed encounter. I thought of a new clever thing I wish I said And you’ll never know it and I won’t know yours. In case you didn’t know I imagine weddings within the first hour of meeting you I felt your peek, but pretended not to look your way I looked you up online and now don’t know where to start That you whispered in my ear and I’ll masturbate To the once hot air on my neck. In case you didn’t know When I turned the corner, I cried. I thought I heard you, too. Maybe both our loved ones Share the same hospital. In case you didn’t know I wore bright colors and made the afternoon men laugh, But tonight I’ll drink to darkness because I have no one. They pay me well, but I only want that other thing— Your poetry, in case I didn’t know.”

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“A cell. An accident. A person who would’ve been miserable anyway. An appointment. A religious order. An expense. A political debate. Anything but a soul. “Why?” I don’t care who fights for my life. I care that they do. They aren’t sure When my life starts, But they tell me when it ends. My body, my rights. Somebody, where’s mine? I wasn’t going to come out As a different thing. So why am I treated Like a different thing? They knew what I’d be,”

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“In 1961, a recovering addict was saved by the works of an uplifting novelist. Months later, the man found out his role model committed suicide one morning. Liar, he cried. It was like watching his hero say that heroes don’t exist and then flying away. What do books mean if the writer gave up? The reader decided to give heroism a try and wrote stories about how great life can be until he could convince himself of it. The experiment is still in the works.”

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“He thrust his pelvis against his mattress, humping his pillow and thinking of no particular woman or memory, but merely the idea of being touched by someone—anyone. It was a sort of sorrowful pornography, masturbating to the day he would never need to masturbate. He closed his eyes and released on his sheets two fluids of desperation: semen of a lonely man and tears of a lonelier one.”

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“The best lover you could ever have will sit on this very bench 270 years from now. You two will never meet. And will never know you’ll never meet. They are, however, currently sitting with you because if you two did meet, you’d spend your time sitting as you are now. Because returning to that bench every afternoon, happily single, was like spending a day with every soul who wants to sit there too.”

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“He spent decades researching his imagination. During this, he gave up the creation of children, the thrill of romance, and even religion for what he believed to be the most important story he could write. When you read his pages, and knew what was sacrificed, each chapter provided you an obscure timeline of a life he never got to live. The publishers will lie and say it costs twelve dollars plus tax.”

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“The shit thing about beauty is only another can redeem it. You can love yourself, but because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, those without beholders aren’t beautiful. They cannot trick themselves into thinking they are. Someone has to say it. Someone has to say, “You are beautiful.” One’s beauty is like the classic fallen tree; “If no one was near the tree when it fell, did it really fall?” If people called you a beautiful baby and now you’ve grown, are you still beautiful?”

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“A post-movie dance: [You walk out of the theatre. You stretch. You toss your popcorn in the trash bin and wonder if it’s recycling. You pretend to be a slow walker on your way to the exit so you don’t appear too close to the stranger in front of you. You walk to the bathroom. You wait in line. You piss. You hold your fart. You come out. You walk to the parking garage. You walk back to the theatre because you forgot to validate your ticket. You come back to your car. You leave the garage. You get a phone call from mom and talk to her. Then you turn on the radio in traffic. Then you come home and respond to e-mails and go back to sleep. And soon, a movie has died.]”

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“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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“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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“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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“I always ask what’s the meaning of life, but when I say the meaning of life I don’t mean, “Why is there an earth?” but I mean, “What am I supposed to do in it?” In this bum ass house in the suburbs of nowhere and a handful of decades. Maybe beer. Paychecks. Crazy girlfriends. Then fixing shit—like there will always be something wrong with our car, or internet that we have to fix, or we have to take care of some family member who’s got some disease. Then we get kids before we could find out the answer.”

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“After finishing his breakfast. Charlie decided to clean the kitchen, but wanted to do it entirely with one leg. He laughed his way through the cabinets, inside the sink, on the floor, under the table, and against the walls like a kid who gets a kick out of making things harder for themself. It was none other than the heart of sport, for what was a sport but a project made to be harder for a player? To pass the ball but only with your feet. To have three chances to bat. To play catch with a friend, but without gloves. The fun was to see if you could do it. But when non-athletic hardships come, the adults mysteriously run.”

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“He turned to his side, with the kind of creepily glazed look our eyeballs make when we’re alone in a room, brushing our teeth, chewing, or wiping our ass. His blanket was still wet with warm semen. He thought about his father. Then he remembered he needed to wash the clothes in the laundromat. His semen dripped and he thought about bird feeding. There was one bird who loved his safflower seeds. He ground his teeth and imagined what it was like to be born in Africa. He reflected on his most recent online English tutor lesson learning from a native speaker. He was fluent, but it paid to feel like you had a friend somewhere. Then he thought of peanut butter. The thoughts of the human mind transition so quickly that it only ever seems strange when we say it aloud to someone else. Otherwise, we’re all secretly freaks with our mouths shut. He laid there ugly.”

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“Exaggeration is another way of saying you’re afraid someone won’t listen to the truth. But the truth’s enough, Laramie. We never know that because we never dare to speak it. Look at how we talk. Or text, in all caps. Thumbs stuck on CAPS lock because we’re scared they won’t get the idea. The media. Everyone begs to be interesting. And questioning what people have always questioned is suddenly an “existential crisis.” And we’re so numb to it. Laughing is called “dying.” Any brief moment of sadness is called “crying.” A great moment is called "iconic." We call our boyfriends and girlfriends our ‘kings’ and ‘queens.’ Who can measure up to that? All of these words, it’s impatient and rudimentary. We are desensitized, Laramie. As if it’s the internet’s information overload that causes us to dramatize our opinions.”

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“He decided to spend his time dancing around the block. In this sequence of joy, every material object to him had the same value. He’d walk around knocking things over because they didn’t matter. They were just things. His outlook and the universe were always bigger. There was no stopping a person who minimized what ought to be minimized. Charlie couldn’t be fooled by constructs. There was something precious about the hands that held a glass ornament the same way they held a boulder. Something rare and admirable in its innocence and fearlessness.”

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