Quotes by Richard Hell

“Well, I thought the Sex Pistols were the cream of the crop. They came in and topped everybody, for sure. They took all the existing strands and made a perfect package out of them.”

“I decided I wanted out because it was killing me, and I couldnt see where to go with it that wouldnt be fatal.”

“I felt just overwhelmed by input: the Vietnam war and the collapse of the 60s and the proliferation of media it just felt like everything was too much to handle and you just tuned out.”

“Its great for me to move on from that, ... And Im glad I survived, to be able to.”

“You realize there are certain things that youll never do that you always thought would be part of your future, ... Its a big relief to discover what you are best-suited for, and its a real advantage to be able then to focus. You can just jettison all this useless floundering around, attempting to do stuff thats really not in your range, and focus.”

“There are characters in it that do deliberately go as far as they can in certain kind of taboo areas,”

“I was going to try to evoke the atmosphere that excited me without trying to actually depict it, ... The main idea was to talk about people for whom poetry was the highest value. ... I just knew I wanted to talk about this kind of way of life, and then it occurred to me to do the Rimbaud-Verlaine thing.”

“When I do dig down, Im very [irritated] underneath, ... Why cant I just write a book about taking a walk and having a cup of coffee? It kind of annoys me about myself. If I could do it differently, I would. Its not some kind of principle. Its just in my nature somehow.”

“[Hell washed up in New York City in the early 1970s as a 17-year-old runaway from Lexington, Ky., hoping to make his mark as a poet and writer. He wasnt running from anything as much as he was just running.] I always just had this urge to just take off, so at least once a year I would run away from home, just to get out from under any restrictions, ... That was a big part of my conception of myself, running away.”

Basically, I have one feeling... the desire to get out of here. And any other feelings I have come from trying to analyze, you know, why I want to go away... See, I always feel uncomfortable and I just want to... walk out of the room. Its not going to any other place or any other sensation, or anything like that, its just to get out of here.

I think love is sort of a con you play on yourself. I think the whole conception of love is something the previous generation invents to justify having created you. You know I think the real reason children are born is because parents are so bored they have children to amuse themselves. Theyre so bored they dont have anything else to do so they have a child because that will keep them busy for a while. Then to justify to the kid the reason he exists they tell him theres such a thing as love and thats where you come from because me and your daddy or me and your mommy were in love and thats why you exist. When actually it was because they were bored out of their minds.

I remember the revelation it was to me when I realized Id rather be smart in the way Elvis Presley was than in the way, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein was. The thing was, you could imagine you could be smart like Wittgenstein by just thinking hard enough, but Elvis just had it. It was almost spiritual. A kind of grace.

Amazing how the most obvious things escape your notice. Maybe the truth is exactly the things you dont notice. Maybe the aim to see and tell the truth is inherently futile, a contradiction in terms, and its exactly those things about oneself and the world that are invisible because they are woven into ones fabric that are the truth. Just like a person cant see his own eyes. You search and search and search, and the truth, by definition, is exactly that which you dont find. You dont see the truth, you are the truth. Habits of attention are reflexes of the complete character of an individual. And how could you notice your own habits of attention? By writing. Well, at their most profound level? It doesnt make any difference. That is the point. Its like Zen. The truth is not straining for the truth, the truth is in effortlessness. The truth is in being, not trying. Aw hell, that doesnt leave much too chew on.

I walk in the sprinkling rain like a lion. Pretty soon there wont be lions anymore. If I have to die to be a lion Ill die. Im roaring, but in the language of rain and sand: I am invisible, I blend in, and Im not hungry so everyone is safe. I can just observe them, join them, I can admire them, I can pity them and love them. Theyre so pathetically beautiful I could cry. How could I ever forget that this world is gorgeous and interesting? Every little detail is a gateway to huge canyons of knowledge and understanding. And its all so sexy. Nothing is restrained, everything is perfectly, ripely, ravishingly itself, and swollen with signs and information that link it in the web.

Its really interesting with art-movies too, but art especially - to see how your attitude toward artists and works and your level of appreciation of them is always shifting and changing over the years.