Christopher Moore Quotations

Everything in Venice is just a little bit creepy, as much as it's beautiful.

For me, 'Lamb' started out as a further exploration of the phenomenon of faith and the responsibility of a messiah that I touched on in 'Coyote Blue' and 'Island of the Sequined Love Nun,' but it ended up being an exploration of the true meaning of sacrifice, loyalty, and friendship.

I love British cursing - the cadence of it, the joy in the sound of the words, and the vulgarity of it.

I've made a dog's breakfast of English history, geography, 'King Lear,' and the English language in general.

Like most people, I woke up one day to find that everyone I knew was taking antidepressants, and since I wasn't, I figured that I must be the cause of their depression.

When you're telling stories, you are actually trying to illuminate some portion of the truth in an artful way. The story may immediately seem to be a lie, but it's like an impressionistic painting - you see the light and the color better than you would with a photo-realistic piece.

I really don't think of my work in terms of a genre. I think of it in terms of what I want to say, what I think is cool, and what I'm good at.

I'm not afraid of getting into a subject I don't know much about.

I'm not nearly as outrageously brave as many of my rascals that I write. But I think the rascal spirit must reside in me somewhere.

When I teach seminars, I tell people, 'Your stuff has to look like something that's out there, because otherwise nobody will take a chance on you.'

You can't teach someone to be funny, but you can teach comic timing. If you listen to a good comic, you can learn how to put it on a page.

San Francisco is a breathtakingly beautiful city, with lots of great contrasts between dark and light, often overlapping each other. It's a great setting for a horror story.

From Dickens's cockneys to Salinger's phonies, from Kerouac's beatniks to Cheech and Chong's freaks, and on to hip hop's homies, dialect has always been used as a way for generations to distinguish themselves.

When I was writing 'You Suck,' in 2006, I constructed the diction of the book's narrator, perky Goth girl Abby Normal, from what I read on Goth blog sites.

I have that special sort of novelist body of knowledge which is extraordinarily wide and very, very shallow. So I can usually answer the questions on 'Jeopardy,' but never the bonus question.

All of the trickster, rascal characters that I write have the voice I aspire to. In real life, you can't be that obnoxious and get away with it.

As Richard Pryor was to Eddie Murphy, that's what Kurt Vonnegut was to me.

I can't write a book like 'Lamb' or 'Fool' every year. It just takes too much research and craft.

I don't give a toss about being remembered after my death.

I don't read reviews if I know in advance they're negative, because I can't have my confidence undermined when I'm writing.

I thought I was going to be a horror story writer. My influences were horror writers, like Rich Matheson, Ray Bradbury and Bram Stoker.

I've sort of made a reputation by high-stepping my way out of genre. As soon as somebody says, 'He does this,' I'm not standing there anymore.

My fans have great senses of humor and eat too much chocolate.

The reason I wrote 'You Suck' was that I so enjoyed spending time with Tommy and Jody.

The reason I'm writing funny books is that I wish there were more.

When you go on book tour, you're always talking about yourself and your book from the time you get up in the morning until you go out at night. You, you. You get really sick of yourself.

There are some elements that are tonal and some are not. But nothing so far out you can't grasp it. It's appealing music.

One thing that's really delightful is my books tend to attract people who are funny, so I get the benefit of people writing me with things that crack me up.

I don't expect you to have any leniency or even believe a word I say. I have to stop lying to myself.

I did the one with the big butt. They said they want something that looks like a Renoir with the face of a 19th-century painting, so we had to do a grotesque painting. It was done in four days.

The only thing that matters to me about my stories is that they're entertaining and they're funny. And I tend to get bored easily, so I generally throw something supernatural in. I would say they're humorous novels that have a supernatural bent, but that's as close as you're going to get to fitting them all in the same basket.

I think beta males on an evolutionary basis are much more successful than the alpha males are. You don't hear much about us, but there's a lot more of us out there.

Our finding suggests that high resolution sensory maps that can quickly and accurately handle many different kinds of sensory features are an essential hallmark of high sensory acuity, in whatever mode of perception is most important to the animal. It makes sense that mammals develop intricate sensory maps in the sensory system that is crucial for them--like vision is for us or the whisker system is for rodents.

Our artists are very good technicians. They have sensibility and artistic balance. But quite often they lack in creation. I have one artist here in my studio in New York. She's a good painter, but she has problems of creating her own stuff, of inventing. She can copy from a postcard, but when she has to do other things she has a tough time. She knows it. Not everybody can do great things.

My mother is very active and involved with the tribe, so I can't help but be involved, too. I go back when I can to teach music classes with middle-school students and hopefully serve as a role model.

I was baptized Methodist, but I was mainly raised First Church of NFL, which is to say that my family, especially my father, was much more concerned with watching football on Sundays than attending services.

You know, a vampire book is not a book to be the vehicle for big themes and stuff, where sometimes when you're dealing with art or the life of Christ or the oeuvre of Shakespeare, you know, it's a little more ambitious.

You're going to break my heart, aren't you?

Kayso, it turns out that driving an actual car is way harder than it is in 'Grand Theft Auto: Zombie Hooker Smackdown.

Foul and magical fumes bubbled out of the kettle, like the flatulence of a dragon on a demon-only diet.

Devil's Food?" You can only eat so much white cake, my friend.

They were told what they wanted and they believed it. They can only keep their dream alive by being with others like themselves who will mirror their illusions.

What this movie needs is more brain eating zombies.

Pondering is a little like considering and a little like thinking, but looser. To ponder, one must let the facts roll around the rim of the mind's roulette wheel, coming to settle in whichever slot they feed pulled to.

It's about average for us. Behavior always draws more than survey. We're the sexy ones,' Nate said with a grin. Amy snorted. 'Oh, yeah, you guys are the Mae Wests of the nerd world.' We're action nerds,' Nate said. 'Adventure nerds. Nerds of romance.

If they'd been dogs, they would have all been in the yard eating grass and trying to yak up whatever was making them feel so lousy. Not a bone gnawed, not a ball chased-all tails went unwagged. Oh, life is a fast cat, a short leash, a flea in that place where you just can't scratch.

Compliment but do not covet.

He has the attention span of a hummingbird.

That's the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony can be spontaneous, while sarcasm requires volition. You have to create sarcasm.

Lonliness evaporated off of them like the steam off dry ice, and by morning it was just a cloud on the ceiling of the room, then gone with the light.

After all the evidence is in--after you've run all the facts by everything you know--and you're still lost, you have to do some things on faith.

Abby: I could be a slave to your darkest desires. I can do things. Anything you want. Tommy: Well, that's terrific, because we have a lot of laundry piled up and the apartment is a wreck. Abby: Anything you desire, my lord. I can do laundry, clean, bring you small creatures to quench your thirst until I am worthy.

Charlie had Sophie strapped to his chest like a terrorist baby bomb when he came down the back steps. She had just gotten to the point where she could hold up her head, so he had strapped her in face-out so she could look around. The way her arms and legs waved around as Charlie walked, she looked as if she was skydiving and using a skinny nerd as a parachute.

Love is not something you think about, it is a state in which you dwell

Tommy moved on. "Lash, your people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. It's time to strike back. Look, you don't have your MBA yet - they haven't completely juiced you of your usefulness yet. Would Martin Luther King back down from this challenge? Malcolm X? James Brown? Don't you have a dream? Don't you feel good, like you knew that you would, now?

...then he looked at my T-shirt and saw Byron's picture on it and he quoted "She Walks in Beauty," which is like my favorite poem next to the one by Baudelaire about his girlfriend being nothing but worm food, except that Lily called that one first because Baudelaire is her fave poet and so she got the shirt with him on it, even though Byron is way more scrumptious and I would do him on sharp gravel if I had the chance. --from The Chronicles of Abby Normal

Ack! Parables. I hate parables.

The medium obscured the message.

Routine feeds the illusion of safety...

Like God's own chocolate, I'd lick her shadow off a hot sidewalk

You know, there's a 12 step program for gambling. You should look into that. Twelve steps. Coyote laughed. I'll bet I can do it in six.

Wet towel under the door,' said Barry. 'It's what you do when you're smoking weed in a hotel and you don't want everyone calling security. You're always supposed to have a towel. I read about it in a guide for hitchhiking through the galaxy.

No theory ever benefited by the application of data, Amy. Data kills theories. A theory has no better time than when it's lying there naked, pure, unsullied by facts. Let's just keep it that way for a while." "So you don't really have a theory?" "Clueless." "You lying bag of fish heads." "I can fire you, you know. Even if Clay was the one that hired you, I'm not totally superfluous to this operation yet. I'm kind of in charge. I can fire you. Then how will you live?" "I'm not getting paid." "See, right there. Perfectly good concept ruined by the application of fact.

Love needs room to grow. Like a rose. Or a tumor.

Like looking down on a lubricious chess set, isn't it? The king moves in tiny steps, with no direction, like a drunkard trying to avoid the archer's bolt. The others work their strategies and wait for the old man to fall. He has no power, yet all power moves in his orbit and to his mad whim. Do you know there's no fool piece on the chessboard, Kent?" "Methinks the fool is the player, the mind above the moves.

I fear you may become a lonely man, even in the company of others.

This Roberto. He no like the light.

Life is messy. Would that every puzzle piece fell into place, every word was kind, every accident happy, but such is not the case. Life is messy

You were supposed to empathize with your friend's problem, but they were, after all, your friend's problems...

We know there's going to be nothing but pain, but we go back again and again.

All killer whales are named Kevin. You knew that, right?

Then someone started pounding on the door. And not a little "Hey, what's up?" pound. Like there was a big sale on door pounds down at the Pound Outlet. Buy one, get one free at Pounds-n-Stuff. --Being the Journal of Abby Normal

I'm thinking of being a professional mourner. How hard can it be? Tear at your hair, sing a dirge or two, take the rest of the week off.

And he was like "The sedative in the blood, blah, blah, four hours, blah, blah, nerdspeak, geektalk -" -Abby

I think I'm what they call a never-was.

. . . And so Charlie Asher . . . led an army of fourteen-inch-tall bundles of animal bits, armed with everything from knitting needles to a spork, into the storm sewers of San Fransciso.

. . . You seem upset, Charlie. Is something wrong? Charlie: No, no, I’m okay, I just had to take directions from a mute beaver in a fez to get here, it’s unsettling.

Charlie Asher: Mrs. Ling, is that duck wearing trousers? Mrs. Ling: Could be . . . . You hear of paper-wrap chicken? This duck in pants.

It's hard for me, a Jew, to stay in the moment. Without the past, where is the guilt? And without the future, where is the dread? And without guilt and dread, who am I?

Oh, I would while away the hours, Wanking in the flowers, my heart all full of song, I'd be gliding all the lilies as I waved about my willie, If I only had a schlong.

Tommy had felt alone in a crowd before, even inferior to everyone in a crowd, but now he felt, well, different. It wasn't just the clothes and the make up, it was the humanity. He wasn't part of it. Heightened senses or not, he felt like he had his nose pressed against the window, looking in. The problem was, it was the window of a donut shop.

Mr. Fresh looked up. "The book says if we don't do our jobs everything could go dark, become like the Underworld. I don't know what the Underworld is like, Mr. Asher, but I've caught some of the road show from there a couple of times, and I'm not interested in finding out. How 'bout you?" "Maybe it's Oakland," Charlie said. "What's Oakland?" "The Underworld." "Oakland is not the Underworld!" "The Tenderloin?" Charlie suggested.

He invented Kung Fu when translated to English means method by which short, bald guys can kick the bejeezus out of you.

Don't be ridiculous, Charlie, people love the parents who beat their kids in department stores. It's the ones who just let their kids wreak havoc that everybody hates.

Not unlike the toaster, I control darkness.

Actually, orcas aren't quite as complex as scientists imagine. Most killer whales are just four tons of doofus dressed up like a police car.

Stop," I said. "Please do not further endorken yourself to me. You have great hair and a car that is most fly, and you have just saved me with your mad ninja driving skills, so do not sully your heroic hottie image in my mind by further reciting your nerdy scholastic agenda. Don't tell me what you're studying, Steve, tell me what's in your soul. What haunts you?" And he was like, "Dude, you need to cut back on the caffeine.

Oh, I get it," I said. "It's a parable. Cute. Let's go eat.

People, generally, suck.

If you have come to these pages for laughter, may you find it. If you are here to be offended, may your ire rise and your blood boil. If you seek an adventure, may this song sing you away to blissful escape. If you need to test or confirm your beliefs, may you reach comfortable conclusions. All books reveal perfection, by what they are or what they are not. May you find that which you seek, in these pages or outside them. May you find perfection, and know it by name.

I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation.

I've won Satan's lottery.

Like last year I took Advance Foods class (which is like cooking for nerds) after lunch, and so I usually took a nap. Which was fine, because I'm not even thrilled about regular foods, so, you know, what do I need with like advanced digital HD wi-fi foods and whatnot? -Abby

Yo, yo, yo, check it out," said PJ, with enough hand gestures that any deaf person watching would have thought he had ASL Tourette's syndrome

Inside, I was like: "Ha, suck my spiky rubber strap-on, vampyre hunter!

Which is why you chose to wear that delightful ensemble from the skank-wear collection at Hoes-n-Thangs?" -Tommy

Advice, then, young yeoman: When referring to the king's middle daughter, state that she is fair, speculate that she is pious, but unless you'd like to spend your watch looking for the box where your head is kept, resist the urge to wax ignorant on her naughty bits." -Pocket I don't know what that means, sir." -Yeoman Speak not of Regan's shaggacity, son" [...] -Pocket

Next out of the hall came the sisters and their husbands. Before I could say anything, the captain had clamped his hand over my mouth and was lifting me off my feet as I kicked. Cornwall made as to draw his dagger, but Regan pulled him away. "You've just won a kingdom, my duke, killing vermin is a servant's task. Leave the bitter fool stew in his own bile." She wanted me. It was clear.

Even a mentally challenged shark would figure out that sea turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in flying piggies, and no sea turtle would be yattering streams of obscenities between chain-smoker gasps of breath.

Theophilus Crowe's mobile phone played eight bars of "Tangled Up in Blue" in an irritating electronic voice that sounded like a choir of suffering houseflies, or Jiminy Cricket huffing helium, or, well, you know, Bob Dylan.