Nick Flynn Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

What you fear your whole life comes to pass. You end up living toward it, you spend your life running from it but your foot is nailed to the sidewalk. You circle around it until you wear yourself own.

Nick Flynn
Read as much as you can. Write only when you feel the inner need to do so. And don't ever rush into print.

Nick Flynn
Water can be a symbol of purification, to stand naked before someone a sign of truth, of nothing to hide.

Nick Flynn
Some part of me knew he would show up, that if I stood in one place long enough he would find me, like you're taught to do when you're lost. But they never taught us what to do if both of you are lost, and you both end up in the same place, waiting.

Nick Flynn
We got him to talk to a psych doctor once, the doctor asked if he heard things other people don't. Sure, Paul answered, I hear birds in the morning when everyone's sleeping, I hear trees rustling when no one's around.

Nick Flynn
Writers, especially poets, are particularly prone to madness. There exists a striking association between creativity and manic depression. Why are more creative people prone to madness? They have more than average amounts of energies and abilities to see things in a fresh and original way—then because they also have depression, I think they're more in touch with human suffering.

Nick Flynn
Alcohol is the river we sit on the banks of, contemplating. Sometimes we watch ourselves float past, sometimes we watch ourselves sink.

Nick Flynn
By the time I make my way to the border of Mauritania, to the edge of the Sahara, I see no end to being lost. You can spend your entire life simply falling in that direction. It isn't a station you reach but just the general state of going down. Once you make it back, if you make it back, you will stand before your long-lost friends but in some essential way they will no longer know you.

Nick Flynn
There are many ways to drown, only the most obvious wave their arms as they're going under.

Nick Flynn
By the time I'm nine I know the world is a dangerous place. I've heard whispers about razorblades in apples, about Charlie Manson and his family. But no one is offering any clear information.

Nick Flynn
Who doesn't want to just disappear, at some point in the day, in a year, to just step off the map and float?

Nick Flynn