“Verbalize someone's actions back to them. Menace them with language, the language mirror. Death by feedback.” — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them,… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“..., and he told a story once after intercourse, to the person who had just politely hoisted him while he hyperventilated in their space… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“Terms BEN MARCUS, THE 1. False map, scroll, caul, or parchment. It is comprised of the first skin. In ancient times, it hung from… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“Loud people have thin, hollow bones. They can be broken in half and discarded into a pit. They snap as easily as children do,… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
I like big doses of grief when I read: Richard Yates, Flannery O'Connor, Kenzabaro Oe, Thomas Bernhard. — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“This first. To understand this. Then maybe." Julian was impressed. The doctor had devised a pretty good tombstone. This first. To understand this. Then… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“Who is setting the bar for what you call accessibility? The definition of “accessible” is “easy to understand,” and so much of the fiction… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“People are considered as areas that resist light, mistakes in the air, collision sweet spots.” — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“The true elitists in the literary world are the ones who have become annoyed by literary ambition in any form, who have converted the… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“Together we were something less, which felt like such a relief, to not be ourselves for a while.” — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
“I prefer men who don't fall down and weep, who absorb a blow, who do not scamper and yell when chased, but stand firm,… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of… — Ben Marcus Copy Share Image
