A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.

— Roman Payne

Apollinaire said a poet should be 'of his time.' I say objects of the Digital Age belong in newspapers, not literature. When I read a novel, I don’t want credit cards; I want cash in ducats and gold doubloons.

— Roman Payne

[As a very young man, I thought] of Europe as a place that could not exist except in the imagination, in glorious dreams, and through the careful lies of the silver screen.

— Roman Payne

As for men, they must learn bravery and live for Pleasure and for Beauty. More important than those two things should stand only one thing for him... Honor. A man's honor should be more sacred to him than his life — especially in our age, a time when very few men know what honor is.

— Roman Payne

A tired man lay down his heading a dusty room so dim, and for so long his wife did shake and yell to waken him.Meanwhile, his thoughts, his dreams, did stir of sandy, red bullfights, of powder-blasts in the Armand carnival delights. Yet still his wife was in despairing a dusty room so dim, for she knew death was a whore not far from tempting him.

— Roman Payne

A woman must prefer her liberty over a man. To be happy, she must. A man to be happy, however, must yearn for his woman more than his liberty. This is the rightful order.

— 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

Being the Novelist-in-Residence at a road hotel in the Kasai of an Arabic North African city is a lot like trying to write one’s memoirs on shreds of napkins in a nuthouse.

— Roman Payne

Be there a picnic for the devil, an orgy for the satyr, and a wedding for the bride.

— Roman Payne

Champagne arrived in flutes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts... for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles... these things fill men's hearts with joy and remind one that life’s bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul.

— Roman Payne