Josh Lanyon famous quotes

Like true philosophers I've come to believe that religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown after proper education.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Believe #Childhood #Philosopher

I liked you the first time I saw you. You were sitting on the floor surrounded by books, and you looked up when I opened the door and smiled right at me. It felt like you had been waiting for me, like you were welcoming me home.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Book #Home #Doors

People loved you in the way they knew how - and often it was not the way you knew. Or needed.
-- Josh Lanyon

#People #Way #Needed

Cops before breakfast.Before coffee even. As if Mondays weren't bad enough.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Monday #Coffee #Breakfast

Kit, you're forty. You look thirty. You act...well, never mind. You're carrying on like you think you're seventy
-- Josh Lanyon

#Thinking #Mind #Looks

He scooped up Victoria practically before she hit the ground, well within the five-second rule. If she'd been a potato chip, he could have still eaten her. Not something I particularly wanted to contemplate.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Potatoes #Potato Chips #Wells

He was breathing, which is always a good sign. As gently as I could I picked him up, placed him on the towel, wrapped it around him, and put him in my car. I drove to the emergency clinic, the cat purring on the seat beside me. “What’s his name?” the young man at the front desk asked as my towel and cat were whisked to a back room. “Uh…John Tomkins,” I said. “That’s different,” the receptionist said, writing it down. “He was a pirate,” I said. “I mean Tomkins. I don’t know about the cat. (...)
-- Josh Lanyon

#Mean #Cat #Writing

Shrugging out of the damaged shirt, Jake said roughly, “I still dream about you.” “I have nightmares about you.” I dragged my T-shirt over my head, threw it aside.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Dream #Jake #Nightmare

He said you were on the scene when that Laurel Canyon homicide went down.” “I’m lucky that way,” I said. “So are you two square again?” I halted, mid-ripping open the cookies, and stared at him. “Well, he’s pretty square,” I said. “I’m just a rectangular guy.” With latent triangular tendencies.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Two #Squares #Guy

I gave a helpless laugh. “Damned if I know. I think…we seem to have reached impasse. I feel betrayed by your friendship with Verlane. I realize that’s not logical. I realize that if I’d made the mistakes Verlane has made, I’d want my friends to stand by me, hope that someone would help me when the time came. I just…” “What?” I met his eyes. “I just need to come first for someone, Guy.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Mistake #Eye #Thinking

She shrugged another plump shoulder. “I never listened to Porter when he got going.” Ah. At last. The secret to a successful marriage.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Successful #Secret #Lasts

I noticed you right away.” She gave me an approving look. “I like quiet, polite men. And men who wear Hugo Boss. I was hoping you weren’t gay. Or that you were only half-gay. Like Paul.” “Uh…sorry,” I said. “It’s pretty much full-time now. The pay’s not great, but the perks…
-- Josh Lanyon

#Sorry #Gay #Men

A pause followed my greeting. Then “We’re watching you ” whispered the voice on the other end. “Yeah? Did you see what I did with my keys? ” Silence. Then dial tone. These younger demons. So easily discouraged.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Voice #Keys #Silence

I love you," Jake whispered. "Are you strong enough for this?" I made myself comfortable. Said over my shoulder, "Sure." "Would you tell me if you weren't?" I grinned. "Maybe. I can't think of a nicer way to commit suicide." "That's good. I can't think of a more pleasant way to commit murder.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Suicide #Strong #Love You

I’m never wrong? Who besides Republican presidents and evil masterminds can say that with a straight face?
-- Josh Lanyon

#Evil #President #Faces

I don't know if real courage lies in storming barricades or simply not denying the truth.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Real #Lying #Barricades

You were the first in every way that counted.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Way #Firsts

'What about stress? Are you using your stress-management techniques when things seem to be getting on top of you?' 'Nothing is getting on top of me.' As I said it, a totally inappropriate picture popped into my mind. 'What are you feeling?' Jake's breath warm against my face, my bruised lips tingling from his kisses. 'Tell me what it feels like with me inside you.'
-- Josh Lanyon

#Stress #Kissing #Feelings

Everything a gay man does makes a political statement. Everything matters: where you bank, where you shop, where you eat. When you hold your lover’s hand in public
-- Josh Lanyon

#Gay #Men #Hands

You're kind of a smart ***** when you're not flat on your face.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Smart #Faces #Kind

I thought of the words of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Renaissance #Philosopher

I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Get your facts straight, and then you can distort them as much as you like.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Thinking #Facts #Said

This is how God made me. You are how God made you. All God's chillun are made how God made 'em. You think God made a mistake, take it up with Him.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Mistake #Thinking #Ems

I know you've all heard the advice, "Show, don't tell." The best writers don't tell you, and quite frankly they don't just show you -- they make you feel it, live it, taste it, touch it. Storytelling is about being in the moment with the characters.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Character #Advice #Taste

He needed fresh air and sunshine. A walk in the woods and afterward a good book to read by the fire. Yeah, that was the life.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Book #Sunshine #Fire

I want people to react to my work, to think, to question, to challenge, to cry and laugh and feel.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Thinking #People #Laughing

I'm not insane. This is very simple, very straightforward. Provided he doesn't kill me, its foolproof.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Simple #Insane #Kill Me

Kevin refilled my plastic cup with more box wine. I smiled thanks. Kevin smiled welcome. Jake kicked my ankle.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Wine #Kevin #Cups

Knowing and believing are two different things.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Believe #Two #Knowing

If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity
-- Josh Lanyon

#Thinking #Objectivity #Skills

Rachel delivered it like an official pronouncement. Like she was one of the fairies gifting Sleeping Beauty's christening: Beauty. Intelligence. Heterosexual.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Sleep #Fairy #Gifting

I thought I recognized you." Really? He remembered me looking like Swamp Thing? How flattering.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Swamps #Flattering #Remembered

Focus on someone else’s problems for a change, I instructed myself. You need the practice. From now on you’ll have to live in a world you didn’t make up. Horrible thought.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Practice #Focus #Needs

Have I ever told you, you look like Monty Clift? he inquired in a deep, seductive voice. Before or after the accident?
-- Josh Lanyon

#Voice #Seductive #Looks

And why is it the best looking ones are always straight?
-- Josh Lanyon

Love... doesn't happen every day. It doesn't happen at all for some people
-- Josh Lanyon

#People

You couldn't hurt a fly." Actually I was pretty good at pinging flies right out of the air, but I tried to look appropriately harmless.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Hurt #Air #Looks

I didn't approve of murder on general principles. Not even of people who seemed to go around begging for it.
-- Josh Lanyon

#People #Principles #Murder

What I like about cooking is that, so long as you follow the recipe exactly, everything always turns out perfect. It’s too bad there’s no recipe for happiness. Happiness is more like pastry—which is to say that you can take pains to keep cool and not overwork the dough, but if you don’t have that certain light touch, your best efforts still fall flat. The work-around is to buy what you need. I’m talking about pastry, not happiness, although money does make things easier all around.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Pain #Fall #Talking

The only thing worse than opera is someone who hums along with opera.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Opera

One thing I’ve noticed about getting older, it takes twice as much work to get half the results one formerly achieved by falling out of bed.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Fall #Getting Older #Bed

Sable hair bisected his pecs and arrowed down to the straight and unequivocal statement of his returned interest. Forcing my gaze to his face, I said, "I really don't think we have time for that." "You know that, and I know that, but HE doesn't believe it." "Believe it," I told HIM. J.X.'s mouth tugged into one of those heart-stopping smiles. "Maybe you should whisper in his ear.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Believe #Heart #Thinking

He went through the cupboards, found the olive oil, and started upstairs again. He glanced down at the green and gold label and had to bite back a laugh at the words Extra Virgin. That about summed it up.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Oil #Laughing #Gold

Drink your coffee -- people in Africa are sleeping.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Coffee #Sleep #People

He looked okay. No, to be honest. He looked a lot better than okay. He looked...fine. Fine, as in get the Chiffons over here to sing a chorus.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Honest #Fine #Okay

Vintage books, old china, antiques; maybe I love old things so much because I feel impermanent myself.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Book #Old Things #Vintage

You know that thing about Death Be Not Proud? Well, Fear Be Not Proud either. And Fear Be Not Elegant. What Fear be is stumbling, bumbling flight, crashing through brush, slip-sliding on pine needles, sloshing through puddles that are always deeper than you expect.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Fear #Puddles #Proud

All cynics are disappointed idealists. The more stars in the eyes, the harder the fall.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Stars #Fall #Eye

Then, like a born and bred asshole, he added to the sheriff, "He writes murder mysteries.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Writing #Mystery #Murder

Adrien, people get killed all the time. Since when is it your job to find out what happened to them?" "I'm not usually suspected of murdering them." "You have been as long as I've known you.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Jobs #Long #People

I'm a thirty-something gay man with a dodgy heart. I sell books for a living. Who wants to read about that?
-- Josh Lanyon

#Book #Heart #Gay

I never meant to get involved with you, Adrien. Rest easy; you're not.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Easy #Rest Easy #Get Involved

...Jake, a homosexual cop buried so deep in the closet he didn't know where to look for himself.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Jake #Looks #Cop

Tiffs among the faggots were apparently the stuff of quiet merriment.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Stuff #Quiet

He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and...unsophisticated. And hung like a horse.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Horse #Selfish #Greedy

And I thought maybe I didn't need to worry about my heart anymore because it had stopped beating a couple of seconds earlier, and I was still sitting there living and breathing-though admittedly I wasn't feeling much of anything.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Couple #Heart #Breathing

I thought again how odd it was to be on formal terms with someone you had once permitted to lick your ears.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Ears #Odd #Formal

Rick said, "Is there some place we can go and talk?" "You want to talk?," Keir raised an eyebrow. "I never thought I'd see the day." "Nah, I want to tell you this joke I heard." Keir nodded, patient. "Shoot." "Two Irish cops walk into a bar. The first cop says..." Rick's voice dropped. He said gruffly, "I love you. Come home." Keir managed to keep his voice steady. "What's the other cop say?" The sweetness of Rick's smile was like a kick in his chest. "That's what I'm here to find out, boyo.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Love You #Home #Eyebrows

I’m not going to let go of you. I’m going to hold you all night. So go ahead and feel whatever you feel. If you’re still craving cocaine, go ahead. You’re safe. You can crave it all you want, but I won’t let go, and if you still feel like you can’t trust yourself in the morning, and it’s what you want, I’ll drive you to rehab myself. Okay?" ~ Max
-- Josh Lanyon

#Letting Go #Morning #Night

Peter is ... adjusting. He's back in school, and he's doing quite well. I wish you could find it in your heart to forgive him." "I've got this funny resentful streak about people who try to kill me.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Heart #School #People

Hearts got broken every day. Nobody died from that. But it did kind of fade the sunlight and drain the color from the days.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Heart #Color #Broken

How did people get over this? They obviously did. Every day someone fell in love with the wrong person and had to pack up all their fragile, misguided hopes and unwanted affection, and move on to the next picnic table.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Moving #People #Picnics

Do you still do the clubs?” Jake shakes his head. “You do the clubs because you can’t find what you need at home. I’ve got everything I need. I’ve got the answer to needs I didn’t even know I had.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Home #Jake #Needs

To find them all in one package...well, perhaps better not to dwell on his package in my fragile state.
-- Josh Lanyon

#States #Wells

Not as intolerable as being dead, in my opinion, but I'm very fond of me. I would miss me a lot.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Missing #Opinion #Miss Me

Anyone who wasn't half-stoned on pain meds would have instantly realized what a really bad idea this plan was, but since that didn't include me, I didn't worry about it.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Pain #Ideas #Worry

The phone rang, picked up, and the same male voice announced, “Chris Powers." "Hey there, Chris. Are you aware it's a felony to make threats over the phone?" To give Powers his fair due, he got over his shock within a split second. “Try it, asshole. I dare you. My lawyers will have you for lunch.” He clicked off again. I did what any red-blooded American male would do. I called my big, ex-cop ex-boyfriend.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Ex Boyfriend #Voice #Lunch

I dug out the powder blue cashmere cardigan my mother Lisa gave me the Christmas before last, pulled on my oldest, softest Levi’s. Comfort clothes; the next best thing to a hug from a warm, living body. Lately there had been a shortage of hugs in my life. Lately there had been a shortage of warm, living bodies.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Mother #Clothes #Blue

He never lied to me. I just didn't ask the questions I didn't want to know the answers to.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Answers #Want #Lied

I hadn't liked him at first. He did sort of grow on you after a while. Like the cosmopolitans. Or maybe because of the cosmopolitans.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Firsts #Grows

The problem with a life spent reading is you know too much.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Witty #Reading #Too Much

He shifted over without comment, lifting the blankets, and I scrambled into the warm sheets beside him. He smelled like soap and sleep and bare skin. He smelled familiar. Not the deja vu familiar of Guy or Mel. Familiar like...the ache in your chest of homesickness, of longing for harbor after weeks of rough seas or craving a fire's warmth after snow--or wanting back something you should never have given away.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Sleep #Sea #Fire

And yet there was something about his strength, his arrogance, his sheer size that got under my skin. He probably couldn't even spell vanilla. He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and...unsophisticated. And hung like a horse.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Horse #Selfish #Arrogance

You got a little bit of an attitude, Mr. English, if you don't mind my saying so. I don't mind.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Attitude #Mind #Littles

Jake's mouth found mine, his lips molding hot and soft to my own. His tongue tentatively tested the seal of my lips; I parted them and he pushed inside. It was startlingly sweet and achingly familiar, like finding harbor.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Sweet #Lips #Jake

We were locked onto each other as though we had just discovered this incredible thing you could do with two mouths pressing close and moist against each other. And the taste of him... Horrifyingly, unbearably sweet -- sweet in the way crack must feel hitting the bloodstream of an addict after years of staying clean.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Sweet #Years #Two

I know that ***** you were with in college --” “Can we leave that ***** out of it?” Please, gentlemen, one ***** at a time.
-- Josh Lanyon

#College #Gentleman #Please

Hey, its not much of a closet is it?" "No. Its not. I don't like closets. Life's to short to spend hiding in the dark.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Dark #Hey #Hiding

When you live with a potentially life-threatening condition you get used to the thought of dying. You accept it, you push on. The thing that scared me was the picture of dying slowly and painfully, the loss of independence and identity to illness.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Fear #Loss #Independence

You don't look so hot, Adrien." "Yeah, well I'm having a bad heart day." His upper lip curled in a semblance of a smile. "Tell me about it.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Heart #Hot #Looks

The battle rages eternal, though the race, religion, gender or sexual orientation of those discriminated against changes regularly. Maybe man’s need for a scapegoat is genetically programmed into him.
-- Josh Lanyon

#Men #Race #Battle