Thomas M. Disch Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

The gods, after all, are only human, and once their rage has been placated they are perfectly capable of acts of mercy and grace.

Thomas M. Disch
Let me tell you about the end of the world. It happened fifty years ago. Maybe a hundred. And since then it's been lovely. I mean it. Nobody tries to bother you. You can relax. You know what? I like the end of the world.

Thomas M. Disch
Sometimes the whole world is mud luscious and puddle wonderful

Thomas M. Disch
But before any of the small appliances who may be listening to this tale should begin to think that they might do the same thing, let them be warned: ELECTRICITY IS VERY DANGEROUS. Never play with old batteries! Never put your plug in a strange socket! And if you are in any doubt about the voltage of the current where you are living, ask a major appliance.

Thomas M. Disch
Boz, who had no patience with Science, always confused north and south.

Thomas M. Disch
He especially liked ads for shampoos and hair coloring. The women in them seemed to regard their hair as independent, capricious entities, whom they must placate and provide with food.

Thomas M. Disch
Marvin Kolodny responded with a boyish grin and offered his hand. An American flag has been tattooed on his right forearm. On a scroll circling the flagpole was the following inscription:

Let's All
Overthrow
the United States
Government
by Force &
Violence

Thomas M. Disch
... there, strung out under the cornice of the building, was the motto, which he had never noticed before, of the Federal Communications Agency:

PLANNED FREEDOM IS THE ROAD TO
LASTING PROGRESS.
So simple, so direct, and yet, when you thought about it, almost impossible to understand.

Thomas M. Disch
There was nothing like shared meals, so the experts at IBM claimed, for overcoming one's basic disbelief in the existence of other people.

Thomas M. Disch
The way we work, the way we talk, the way we watch television or walk down the street, even the way we fuck, or maybe that especially—each of those is part of the problem of identity. We can't do any of those things authentically until we find out who we really are and be that person, inside and out, instead of the person other people want us to be. Usually those other people, if they want us to be something we aren't, are using us as a laboratory for working out their own identity problems.

Thomas M. Disch
A predilection for genre fiction is symptomatic of a kind of arrested development.

Thomas M. Disch
It considered trying to explain their error to them, but what would be the use? They would only go away with hurt feelings. You can't always expect people, or squirrels, to be rational.

Thomas M. Disch
Writers tend to consider distinction and originality as virtues, but they are anathema to publishers.

Thomas M. Disch
Religious faith often finds itself at odds with story-telling. Puritans ban acting companies. Islam is uneasy about all forms of representation. And why? Because the experience of walking out of the theater after a performance is a paradigm of disillusionment, and religious people are officially supposed to believe, first and foremost, in their own literal faith, from which there are no exits. They've taken the big leap, and live, ever after, in free fall.

Thomas M. Disch
So, without saying anything to the others, it made its way to the farthest corner of the meadow and began to toast an imaginary muffin. That was always the best way to unwind when things got to be too much for it.

Thomas M. Disch
But the toaster was quite satisfied with itself, thank you. Though it knew from magazines that there were toasters who could toast four slices at a time, it didn't think that the master, who lived alone and seemed to have few friends, would have wanted a toaster of such institutional proportions. With toast, it's quality that matters, not quantity.

Thomas M. Disch
Jobs are like going to church: it's nice once or twice a year to sing along and eat something and all that, but unless you really believe there's something holy going on, it gets to be a drag going in every single week.

Thomas M. Disch
Here was a flower (the daisy reflected) strangely like itself and yet utterly unlike itself too. Such a paradox has often been the basis for the most impassioned love.

Thomas M. Disch
All the things that happen and seem so important at the time, and yet you forget them, one after another.

Thomas M. Disch