There's two kinds of people, kid: the kind who pretend…

“This was, I sometimes thought, the last gift my father gave me. And the best: His death stood out as the supreme-o excuse for…

— Jerry Stahl

I think there's a phenomenon of people who want to be around something that seems "dangerous." It makes them feel more real.

— Jerry Stahl

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

“Not until I stopped doing drugs altogether did I feel like a man. Not until I walked out of that fire did I have…

— Jerry Stahl

“This book, for me, is less an exercise in recall than exorcism.”

— Jerry Stahl

“Not doing something crude right off is about as close as a guy like me ever gets to class.”

— Jerry Stahl

A waft of sweet hash drifted by, and I wanted to float after it like Wimpy levitating at the scent of a hamburger.

— Jerry Stahl

I always tell myself, when I remember the non-stop self-generated hell party that used to be my life, I wouldn't be here if I…

— Jerry Stahl

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…

— Jerry Stahl

“...with enough rock in your system, you could hear every noise in the universe.”

— Jerry Stahl

I think that a lot of people are in love with stress. It's the dirty little secret of Western civilization. People often mistake stress…

— Jerry Stahl

“There are stories you don't want to tell, and there are stories that scald your brainpan right down to the tongue at the mere…

— Jerry Stahl

Heroin spread that soft blanket over everything. But once the blanket was ripped off, it took a layer of skin with it, leaving nothing…

— Jerry Stahl

“In some odd gush of patriotism, my mother had once vomited on the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, and a bust of Benjamin…

— Jerry Stahl

“Being a junkie, when you broke it down, was nothing more than a crazed day job.”

— Jerry Stahl