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I used to say, for me, writing was like walking a high wire, and heroin made me forget there was no net. Which is a fancy way of saying dope made me forget how shitty I felt for being on dope.

Jerry Stahl

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Jerry Stahl
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: September 28
Autobiographer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Herbert W. Day
Used
Dope
Writing
Wire
Made
Fancy
Way
Walking
Like
Saying
High
Forget
Shitty
Felt
Heroin

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Nothing ever turns me on so much in a woman as unhappiness.
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There's no deodorant for desperation.
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Rumi will transform you, in ways you didn’t know you needed transforming.
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To me, God is like this happy bus driver.
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At 17, all I wanted was to be a famous junky. Like all my heroes.
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In my family, misery didn't just love company, it wanted hostages.
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Heroin spread that soft blanket over everything. But once the blanket was ripped off, it took a layer of skin with it, leaving nothing but nerve ends screaming in the breeze.
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The second time I took acid, I watched myself in the mirror for nine hours. What I realized, when I stared, was that my face looked exactly the same when I cried as when I laughed. After awhile I couldn't tell which I was doing. Relief was just pain inside out.
Jerry Stahl
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Junkies are liars. They have to be professionally.
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There was a weird intimacy, sitting in a car together. Couples sat in cars. Cops and their partners. Strangers became unstrange, sharing a windshield view of the world.
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This is what I think: If you had the nerve to live what you lived, you should have the nerve to write it.
Jerry Stahl
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This is, I believe, what happens when people take their own lives. They're not killing themselves, they're killing the world. Either to spare it pain or to cause it some, depending.
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I always figured I myself would never be lucky enough to die, I'd just live on and on in this increasingly dreary spiral.
Jerry Stahl
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If you're here for four more years or four more weeks, you're here right now. I think when you're somewhere, you ought to be there. It's not about how long you stay in a place, it's about what you do while you're there, and when you go, is that place any better for your having been there?
Jerry Stahl
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I didn't really start publishing books until I was 40 because I was busy being a McDonald's employee. So there's always a sense of trying to make up for lost time.
Jerry Stahl
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I've always wanted to be a guy with a rec room.
Jerry Stahl
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Creativity is the opposite of TV
Jerry Stahl
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The traditional dictionary definition of the difference is that an alcoholic will steal your wallet in a blackout, come to, and apologize for it. A junkie will steal your wallet and then help you look for it. But ultimately I think all addictions boil down to just not being able to be with yourself for any long degree of time.
Jerry Stahl
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My own theory is that people are just so desperate for somebody they can feel better than, in America. Now that everyone's going broke and working 17 jobs - if they have one at all - at least they can look at these guys behind bars and think, At least I get to wear my own clothes to work.
Jerry Stahl
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I kept getting high to kill my shame at the fact that I kept getting high.
Jerry Stahl