Payne Quotes

“What a face this girl possessed!—could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born. Her face, at once innocent and feral, soft and wild! Her mouth voluptuous. Eyes deep as oceans, her eyes as wide as planets. I likened her to the slender Psyché and judged that the perfection of her face ennobled everything unclean around her: the dusty hems of her bunched-up skirt, the worn straps of her nightshirt; the blackened soles of her tiny bare feet, the coal-stained balcony bricks upon which she sat, and that dusty wrought-ironwork that framed her perch. All this and the pungent air!—almost foul, with so many odors. Ô, that and the spicy night! …Pungency, spice, filth and night, dust and light; all things dark did blossom in sight; flower and bloom, the night has its pearl too—the moon! And once a month it will make the face of this tender girl bloom.”
― Roman Payne

“Women are extraordinary creatures!”
― Roman Payne

“What a face this girl possessed!—could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born.”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

“We look up to see if it is day or night. If stars burn cool and moon does shine, we take to smoke divine and wine.
If breath of sun does belch its heat,
we boil coffee and prepare to eat.”
― Roman Payne

“Looking back on my life, I sigh. The caprice of youth goes with the wind, I’ve no regrets.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“When I was younger, I would cling to life because life was at the top of the turning wheel. But like the song of my gypsy girl, the great wheel turns over and lands on a minor key. It is then that you come of age and life means nothing to you. To live, to die, to overdose, to fall in a coma in the street... it is all the same. It is only in the peach innocence of youth that life is at its crest on top of the wheel. And there being only life, the young cling to it, they fear death… And they should! ...For they are 'in' life.”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

“I sat up in the strange bed fearing it had been a dream, afraid I would never see her again. Not because I wanted anything from her, only her presence. The disappearance of the presence of beauty is the most despairing of events on this time-wheel of ours that rolls onward towards death.”
― Roman Payne, The Basement Trains: A 21st Century Poem

“We look up to see if it is day or night.
If stars burn cool and moon does shine,
We take to smoke divine and wine.
If breath of sun does belch its heat,
we boil coffee and prepare to eat.”
― Roman Payne

“The moment her hymen was plucked from her body in the wilderness,
Her soul was taken from sanity.”
― Roman Payne

“I likened her to the slender PSYCHÉ and judged that the perfection of her face ennobled everything unclean around her: The dusty hems of her bunched-up skirt, the worn straps of her nightshirt; the blackened soles of her bare feet [...] All this and the pungent air! Ô this night, sweet pungent night! "HÉBÉ" may come but a season. But this girl's season would know a hot spring
and an Indian summer.”
― Roman Payne

“There are times when a man should sleep entwined in the warm flesh of a woman, his flanks plummeting into the perfumed bedding while she lovingly rolls her sweet shoulders into his chest. Whereas, there are times to be stoic and solitary—sleeping alone on a wooden board with twill sheets and splinters that scratch the skin.”
― Roman Payne

“It’s not that we have to leave this life one day, it's how many things we have to leave all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, wine, summertime,
drunkenness, and the physics of falling leaves, clothing, myrrh, perfumed hair, flirting friends, two strangers' glance; the reflection of the moon, with words like, 'Soon' ... 'do you
want me?' ... '...to lie enlaced' ... 'and sleep entwined' thinking ahead, with thoughts behind...?' Ô, Why!
Why can’t we leave this life slowly?”
― Roman Payne

“A writer needs to ingest love to be passionate. Passion is a metabolite of love, and good writing is an active metabolite of passion.”
― Roman Payne

“Life is Not a perpetual climb towards Greatness.
For our family, ourselves, and friends,
It is but sad Decay, so,
Let every girl die after her Hebé (Ἥβη).
And every man after his Aristeia(ἀριστεία).”
― Roman Payne

“What a face this girl possessed!—Could I neither die then nor gaze at her face every day, I would need to recreate it through painting or sculpture, or through fatherhood, until a second such face could be born.”
― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

“Une fille sans nattes est comme une ville sans ponts.”
― Roman Payne, Cities & Countries

“Panting, he looked into a face he couldn't see. "What the fuck is your problem?"

"I'm bored." With that, she head-butted him right in the goddamn nose.”
― J.R. Ward, Lover Avenged