Jerry Stahl

I don't really know how to do much else besides write.

— Jerry Stahl

I kept getting high to kill my shame at the fact that I kept getting high.

— Jerry Stahl

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

— Jerry Stahl

It's not like I was an alkie or anything. Alcohol is for cleaning needles

— Jerry Stahl

“Why am I always attracting women who still slept with stuffed animals?”

— Jerry Stahl

To me, God is like this happy bus driver.

— Jerry Stahl

Nothing ever turns me on so much in a woman as unhappiness.

— Jerry Stahl

“When in doubt, though, counter with your own cool.”

— 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

“Just because I'd kicked junk, after all, did not mean I'd kicked being a junkie. And junkies lie. It's their primary addition.”

— Jerry Stahl

“Pat Boone still didn't cover public cunt-licks in Tips for Teens , and there really wasn't anybody to ask.”

— Jerry Stahl

“Sometimes what I did five minutes ago scared the fuck out of me five minutes later.”

— Jerry Stahl

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

— Jerry Stahl

“Let me tell you something. Boring women get a bad rap. There's a lot to be said for boring women.”

— Jerry Stahl

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

— Jerry Stahl

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

— Jerry Stahl

“I was too busy destroying my life to bother with a minor detail like contractual obligation. I had veins to blow. A…

— Jerry Stahl

“That's the thing about people you loved. They disappeared on you. I didn't know much at the ripe old age of fifteen…

— 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…

— Jerry Stahl

“Tina hit that tingle in the back of his head, the fuse that usually stayed damp, the one that got lit on…

— Jerry Stahl

Heroin spread that soft blanket over everything. But once the blanket was ripped off, it took a layer of skin with it,…

— Jerry Stahl

I think it's just too kinda juicy and compelling to imagine people in their private lives, but then half the time people's…

— Jerry Stahl

“From diapers on, I felt like there was something not good about me, but it was invisible to everybody but my mother.…

— Jerry Stahl

There was a weird intimacy, sitting in a car together. Couples sat in cars. Cops and their partners. Strangers became unstrange, sharing…

— Jerry Stahl

“I'm so dopesick, my tears taste like urine. It's as if the air itself were made of broken glass. I try to…

— Jerry Stahl

Jake La Botz is a creator of dark poetry and haunting song, the kind of music that gets in your bones and…

— Jerry Stahl

“Women in movies from Hollywood's golden era dressed the way my mother did now. My entire childhood, she'd shown up at PTA…

— Jerry Stahl

“Mostly what I remember is the way things looked sometimes after I'd push down the plunger, sometimes when I got so high…

— Jerry Stahl

“This was the history of the world. Recovery and collapse, despair and relief. The dialectic of clean and dirty. Every time is…

— Jerry Stahl

All of us, at some point in life, choose our cliché.

— Jerry Stahl

Rumi will transform you, in ways you didn’t know you needed transforming.

— Jerry Stahl

In my family, misery didn't just love company, it wanted hostages.

— Jerry Stahl

“When life becomes sub-human, sub-humans come alive.”

— Jerry Stahl

I've always wanted to be a guy with a rec room.

— Jerry Stahl

For me there was never a lot of glamor involved in being a junkie, it was about trying to hide the puke…

— Jerry Stahl

“Rec Room! Wow!" My eyes would have glazed over if they hadn't started out that way, pre-glazed. "I've always wanted to be…

— 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…

— Jerry Stahl

“A tiny butter knife slices more skin off my heart every time I think about her.”

— Jerry Stahl

“People always ask, "What's the worst thing heroin drove you to do?". I always answer, "showing up on Maury .”

— Jerry Stahl

I need - and occasionally love - to write for the same reasons I always did: hard as writing is, it's generally…

— Jerry Stahl