Dave Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000)

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Good artists exist in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

Dave Eggers

We're best at the long high throws. Like when you take four or five steps and rip it— It's almost like a shotput approach, the steps, four or five quick, one over the other, kind of sideways-like—and then you slash away with that fucker, it's such a violent act, throwing that white thing, you're first cradling it to your breast and then you whip that fucker as hard as you can while keeping it level, keeping it straight, but otherwise with everything you can send with it you whip that fucker like it had blades on it and you wanted it to cut straight through the paperblue sky like a screen, rip through it and have it be blood and back space beyond.

Dave Eggers

If you don't want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself. You're taking up space, air.

Dave Eggers

She pulls away, pats me on the shoulder with three mini-pats, like those used to pet reptiles.

Dave Eggers

Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like learning French or collecting scarves.

Dave Eggers

We are the bright new stars born of a screaming black hole, the nascent suns burst from the darkness, from the grasping void of space that folds and swallows—a darkness that would devour anyone not as strong as we. We are oddities, sideshows, talk show subjects. We capture everyone's imagination.

Dave Eggers

Matter of fact, the first three or four chapters are all some of you might want to bother with. That gets you to page 123 or so, which is a nice length, a nice novella sort of length.

Dave Eggers

All we really want is for no one to have a boring life, to be impressive, so we can be impressed.

On the friends we choose

Dave Eggers

And we will be ready, at the end of every day will be ready, will not say no to anything, will try to stay awake while everyone is sleeping, will not sleep, will make the shoes with the elves, will breathe deeply all the time, breathe in all the air full of glass and nails and blood, will breathe it and drink it, so rich, so when it comes we will not be angry, will be content, tired enough to go, gratefully, will shake hands with everyone, bye, bye, and then pack a bag, some snacks, and go to the volcano.

Dave Eggers

Pain comes at me and I take it, chew it for a few minutes, and spit it back out. It's just not my thing anymore.

Dave Eggers

I am a freak in secondhand velour, a leper who uses L'Oreal Anti-sticky Mega Gel. I am rootless, ripped from all foundations, an orphan raising an orphan and wanting to take away everything there is and replace it with stuff I've made.

Dave Eggers

Toph does not know the words, and I know few of the words, but you cannot fucking stop us from singing

Dave Eggers

We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.

Dave Eggers

Why do you want to be on The Real World? -Because I want everyone to witness my youth Why? -Isn't it gorgeous?

Dave Eggers

We feel that to reveal embarrassing or private things, we have given someone something, that, like a primitive person fearing that a photographer will steal his soul, we identify our secrets, our past and their blotches, with our identity, that revealing our habits or losses or deeds somehow makes one less of oneself.

Dave Eggers

But what I really want is to just swim around in a warm baby pool of these friends, jump in their dry leaf pile-to rub them all over myself, without words and clothes.

Dave Eggers

Ooh, look at me, I'm Dave, I'm writing a book! With all my thoughts in it. La la la!

Dave Eggers

You have what I can afford to give. You are a panhandler, begging for anything, and I am the man walking briskly by, tossing a quarter or so into your paper cup. I can afford to give you this. This does not break me.

Dave Eggers

'Listen John—'
'Who's John?'
'You're John.'
'I'm John?'
'Yeah, I changed your name.'

Dave Eggers

Through the small tall bathroom window the December yard is gray and scratchy, the tree calligraphic.

Dave Eggers

I am sorry Chris is late this morning. I could make something up about an appointment or a sickness, but the fact is that we woke up late. Go figure
Best,
Brother of Toph.

Dave Eggers

It's not that our family has no taste, it's just that our family's taste is inconsistent.

Dave Eggers

... I'll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait, and I've been so old for so long for you, for you, I want it fast and right through me— Oh do it, do it you motherfuckers do it you fuckers finally, finally, finally.

Dave Eggers

First Of All:
I am tired.
I am true of heart!

And Also:
You are tired.
You are true of heart!

Dave Eggers

I like the dark part of the night, after midnight and before four-thirty, when it's hollow, when ceilings are harder and farther away. Then I can breathe, and can think while others are sleeping, in a way can stop time, can have it so – this has always been my dream – so that while everyone else is frozen, I can work busily about them, doing whatever it is that needs to be done, like the elves who make the shoes while children sleep.

Dave Eggers

We cannot fathom why people would stand across the street, easily a hundred feet away, when they could be so close, near us.
'Suckers.' I tell Toph, thumbing toward those watching from so far away. It is important, I feel, that the boy knows what suckers look like.

Dave Eggers