I went to public school but kept to myself. When you live in a brothel, you don't want anyone coming to your home.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

Once desire was turned on, combustion gave it a life of its own. Once it was turned on it became a raging wildfire, uncontrollable and uncontainable, the type of conflagration that had to be allowed to burn itself out.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

People know your tragedies, and they treat you like you’re not human. Like you’re a three-headed goat. A monster from some other planet. They keep reminding you of your pain. You see how they look at me? They’re stuck on that person I used to be. They can’t see that old life as just a moment in time that I’ve moved on from. It was a horrible life.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

Physical attraction was about aesthetics, not sexual performance, not mental stimulation. Without a mental connection, a remarkable sexual performance yielded no lifelong guarantees. It was only lust. And lust was not love.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

Preacher pulled her gun to her lap, the trigger aimed toward the stranger. . . . He stared at her like he was ready to dial 911, until he saw she was of European heritage, saw her clerical collar, saw the Bible on the dashboard. White, blond, and Christian. Trifecta. The man's shoulders relaxed, and he smiled, waved, and kept going.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

Sleeping with strangers will have you walking with enemies.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

Some crazy man came up to me and started screaming at me about how he hated Allah, and before I could tell him that my family was part of the Catholic Church in India, he knifed me.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

That’s what sex does: it starts relationships, and it verifies the end of relationships.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

Then she called Matthew. He answered, "Where the fuck are you? I've been calling you for hours." She said, "I was asleep. Just woke up. What's the problem?"" Don't tell me you're still in your hotel room in your bed."" Didn't I say I just woke up? Still in bed. Needed some sleep. Just waking up. . . ."" Is that right?". . . "Where are you right now?"" Antigua motherfucking Yacht Club. Room twenty-fucking-nine. Sitting on a. . . Four-poster bed that has a damn mosquito net pulled back so I know I can see what the fuck I see. And I see an empty four-poster bed. . . But hell, maybe I'm wrong, because I know I didn't marry a goddamn liar. So I guess if I'm in your room, and you're in the goddamn bed, just waking up, then either I am as blind as a fucking bat or you must be fucking invisible.

— Eric Jerome Dickey

. . . The walls of her vagina tightening around me as she laughed.

— Eric Jerome Dickey