Quotes by Roman Payne

Who’s to say what a ‘literary life’ is? As long as you are writing often, and writing well, you don’t need to be hanging-out in libraries all the time. Nightclubs are great literary research centers. So is Ibiza!

Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer?

Apollinaire said a poet should be of his time. I say objects of the Digital Age belong in newspapers, not literature. When I read a novel, I don’t want credit cards; I want cash in ducats and gold doubloons.

People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris.

Rich will be my life if I can keep my memories full and brimming, and record them on clear-eyed mornings while I set joyously to work setting pen to holy craft.

Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page.

The ‘Muse’ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake.

Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.

I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so thin there was barely even skin to pinch, and every time I held them, I worried I would snap them in two. But for all of these: where they had merited my love was in their delicious smell. Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.

From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent. It can only be squandered.

I care not that this moment’s lot was thin and sparsely dealt all pleasures sweet can be forgot the instant they are felt.

The youthful body untouched decays the fastest, for no living hands record its splendor; and here youth and time are wasted.

I just wish moments weren’t so fleeting! Isaac called to the man on the roof, They pass so quickly! Fleeting?! responded the tilling man, Moments? They pass quickly?! . . . Why, once a man is finished growing, he still has twenty years of youth. After that, he has twenty years of middle age. Then, unless misfortune strikes, nature gives him twenty thoughtful years of old age. Why do you call that quickly? And with that, the tilling man wiped his sweaty brow and continued tilling; and the dejected Isaac continued wandering. Stupid fool! Isaac muttered quietly to himself as soon as he was far enough away not to be heard.

The lot of the brideto be wed before beddesired until rotten.The lot of the authorto be read before bedadmired then forgotten.

May a man live well-, and long-enough, to leave many joyful widows behind him.

I regained my soul through literature after those times Id lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets.

Ô, the wine of a womanfrom heaven is sent, more perfect than allthat a man can invent.When she came to my bed and begged me with sighsnot to tempt her towards passion nor actions unwise, I told her I’d spare her and kissed her closed eyes, then unbraided her body of its clothing disguise.While our bodies were nude bathed in candlelight fineI devoured her mouth, tender lips divine;and I drank through her thighs her feminine wine.Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent,more perfect than all that a man can invent.

Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent,more perfect than all that a man can invent.

Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.

Alexander the Great slept with The Iliad beneath his pillow. During the waning moon, I cradle Homer’s Odyssey as if it were the sweet body of a woman.