John Gay Quotes

Mencheres slid through the water toward her, drawn by the same inexorable compulsion that led moths to dance with flames. He'd had several lifetimes' worth of reason, cold machinations, and, ultimately, emptiness. Perhaps the moths knew what he didn't, that the joy of the flame was worth the price of destruction.

To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.

Gamblers and lovers really play to lose.

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

The concept of 'Bad Magic' is something that is incredibly intoxicating and magical but ultimately bad for you.

I'm an ambitious person. I mean, if I did that... I would self-destruct, in the sense that the decadence would be too strong an attraction for me. Whether that be in the form of gambling, fast cars, alcohol, drugs, whatever it happens to be... I think the lure of that lifestyle would be too strong.

Let my lusts be my ruin, then, since all else is a fake and a mockery.

Girls like her, my grandfather once warned me, girls like her turn into women with eyes like bullet holes and mouths made of knives. They are always restless. They are always hungry. They are bad news. They will drink you down like a shot of whisky. Falling in love with them is like falling down a flight of stairs. What no one told me, with all those warnings, is that even after you’ve fallen, even after you know how painful it is, you’d still get in line to do it again.

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, to drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.

Man may escape from rope and gun; Nay, some have outlived the doctor's pill: Who takes a woman must be undone, That basilisk is sure to kill. The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets, So he that tastes woman, woman, woman, He that tastes woman, ruin meets.

Curiosity kills itself; and love is only curiosity, as is proved by its end.

Clever girl. You play with fire because you want to be burnt.

Man loves his own ruin. The cup is so sweet that though he knows it will poison him, yet he must drink it. And the harlot is so fair, that though he understands that her ways lead down to hell, yet like a bullock he follows to the slaughter till the dart goes through his liver. Man is fascinated and bewitched by sin.

I'm going to be a superstar musician, kill myself, and go out in a flame of glory.

You've heard of plug-and-play. This is plug, unplug and play. It's so simple to use, it's unbelievable.

The mathematical phenomenon always develops out of simple arithmetic, so useful in everyday life, out of numbers, those weapons of the gods: the gods are there, behind the wall, at play with numbers.

I've learned that I must find positive outlets for anger or it will destroy me. There is a certain anger: it reaches such intensity that to express it fully would require homicidal rage--self destructive, destroy the world rage--and its flame burns because the world is so unjust. I have to try to find a way to channel that anger to the positive, and the highest positive is forgiveness.

I get that we can't be together. And it's not like I'm so weak-willed that the simple act of saying hello to me will cause me to jump your bones in the hall.

Our blossoms of passion, gay and luxuriant flowers, are bright and full of fragrance, but they beguile us and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.

Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever.

Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.

I coveted you. I had no right to want you--but I reached out and took you anyway. And now look what's become of you! Trying to seduce a vampire.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame And every time I pass that way I always hear my name