I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a struggle between internal chaos and the desire for escape.
In this quote, Bret Easton Ellis expresses a profound sense of inner turmoil and madness that spills over into his daily life, suggesting that the pressures of the city and his own thoughts have become overwhelming. The imagery of 'bloodlust' and 'mask of sanity' conveys a deep conflict within oneself, where the urge for a break from this chaos is seen as necessary for mental well-being.
In practice
When discussing mental health, this quote may illustrate the need for an escape from one's chaotic thoughts.
I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.
You do not write a novel for praise, or thinking of your audience. You write for yourself; you work out between you and your pen the things that intrigue you
If I want to write a movie, I'll write a screenplay, but if I have an idea for a book, it's something that I think can only be done novelistically.
But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.
I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don’t remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is 'Disappear Here' and even though it’s probably an ad for some resort, it still freaks me out a little and I step on the gas really hard and the car screeches as I leave the light.
But this road doesn't go anywhere,” I told him. “That doesn't matter.” “What does?” I asked, after a little while. “Just that we're on it, dude,” he said.
In everything that moves through the universe, I see my own body, and in everything that governs the universe, my own soul. All men are my brethren, and all things my companions.
The words we use for the Creator are a reflect of ourselves. If we think of God as fear and shame, we are scared and have something to be ashamed of ... But if we see love, compassion and kindness, it is because we possess these qualities.
If the day comes when you would find me again, give that coin to any man from Braavos, and say these words to him--valar morghulis.
Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time.
The little word is has its tragedies: it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger.
Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.
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