THIS IS THE ONLY TEXT I WILL EVER BE ABLE TO SEND. In which I go through TFLN until I come up with twenty [ETA: …plus] which work for famous authors. At that point I will have mercy on you people; but for now, let’s do this thing. Rough language, asterisked-out but obvious, in the post which follows.

Caryl Churchill, The Skriker (especially since this is from the UK!):

There are apples in the microwave and a cup of twigs in the fridge. I think she’s hiding in the pantry, I can hear her giggling. Leaving her to it.

Philip Roth, who will forever be saddled with precisely this public image (you should still read him!):

LOVE ME LIKE A KANGARO LOVES A POUCH YOU DUMB C***

I’m getting a bizarrely Jay MacInerney vibe from this one:

It was like the titanic mixed with those sad puppy commercials mixed with jello shots

and again (why do I associate him with puppies? is it just his American sentimentality? puppies and cocaine, I think that’s my image of this dude’s writing):

(717):

Seriously, I was a high class hooker. I was snorting shit Rachel, white powder, lines formed with credit cards, the dudes house was beautiful. Magnum condom. Adorable puppy dog. Pretty sure at some point I was sleeping on a washing machine. Boxing Gloves.
(717):

Those were the highlights of my night.

James Goldman:

(303):

Someone else needs to become the bad example in our group
(1-303):

But you wear shame so well

As soon as I saw this one I said, “Oh no! It’s obviously an author I adore… but which one?!” In the end I think it’s probably from The Liar, since that book is something of a pastiche-collage (-soi-disant-femme-fatale-manqué) of all the other books I’ve ever loved:

You are mentally unprepared to be exposed to my degree of perversion.

But I’d also accept Christopher Fry or maybe even Tom Stoppard (I could see the Communist-bourgeois husband in Rock’n’Roll saying something like this).

Obvious, but I’m going to go with Kingsley Amis for this one, just because of his brilliant “ontogeny replicates phylogeny”-style description of a hangover in Lucky Jim:

I drank entirely too much. My skin hurts to wear

A caricature of Cormac McCarthy:

Woke up with a raging boner…good feeling abt this trial

(I would also, of course, accept Sweeney Todd.)

Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (“Well I don’t know, I guess she took the plant out and put her head in!”):

Um. That’s my cat Laura. You put my cat in your mouth, and then you put my cat in your purse.

This is too easy, but Douglas Adams (“I felt like I was drunk.” “What’s so bad about being drunk?” “…Ever been a glass of water?”):

(850):

hungover and i feel like a burrito
(1-850):

like eating one or like you are one?
(850):

like i am one.

Quentin Crisp on the Blitz:

How bad does the situation have to be before its ok to attempt ‘catastrophic event sex’?

I would also accept Tony Kushner.

Somebody in here has to be The Secret History, and I vote for this guy:

I’m very fluent in vodka, but that seems to be a whiskey dialect.

James Joyce (no, think about it and you’ll see that I’m right… although, now that I’m hesitating, Guillermo Cabrera Infante would also work okayish):

i have at this current moment imbibed enough alcohol to float immerse or otherwise submerge a goat of respectable size. tequila

…Ronald Firbank:

If thou arrisest to consciousness before I, rise me to an office of alertness for occupations such as brunch. Warm Regards, your roommate.

I was hoping we’d get one from Djuna Barnes!

Oh god I may vomit into the teacup of debauchery.

Although actually that might’ve been Florence King again. Begin again.

Aristophanes!:

Well then. It seems like we have a Mexican standoff of genitals

Would it betray my lack of learning if I suggested Euripides?:

It’s getting increasingly easier to use his emotional instability to my advantage. That’s about all he has going for him right now.

JEAN GENET:

He needs to stop telling me how much he respects me. What does that even mean

(or possibly Pauline Réage, I’m not picky)

…also, while we’re on the subject of Genet,

He makes this seasoned whore feel like a novice. I’ve met the one.

Walker Percy or even Wendell Berry (it’s blatant enough for Berry, especially given the emoticon, but I like Percy better so I’ll say it’s him):

Congratulations!! You are the WINNER of a brand new BLOWJOB!! You can collect your prize between the hours of 12pm and 1pm today, anywhere you’d like!!! 🙂

oh and hey, as long as we’re decrying the bourgeois pursuit of self,

I’ve come to the conclusion while folding laundry and watching porn that I may be dead inside.

Literally any college-satire novelist since 1959, but I will go with Hugh Kennedy:

We are getting high tomorrow and being statues at the cafeteria. Come find us.

WC Fields or Evelyn Waugh or practically anybody I like:

Little boy scout stared at me with judgmental looks while I bought 3 bottles of liquor but refused to buy popcorn from him

Okay, I can’t help myself: Maggie Gallagher, since our contemporary marriage debate might be so different if she hadn’t become pregnant in her senior year of college…:

the doctor said its the kinda of pregnant you dont recover from

(and on a serious note, you really should check out her first book, Enemies of Eros, and at least the chapter “The Meaning of Marriage” from her second–no matter what you think about gay issues, she’s amazingly insightful on what it means to be an incarnate being–not someone who has a body, but someone who is a unity of body and soul)

OK, this one sounds kind of like a lame Allen Ginsberg, so… Laurence Ferlinghetti??? One of the stupider parts of The Ticket that Exploded?:

Is it possible to dent your eyeball? And how do you “accidentally” go cosmic bowling?

…or Douglas Adams again?

…or some of the student poetry from The Alfred G. Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations, which by the way is hilarious?

Caricature of Neil LaBute and/or David Mamet:

I’m not really into her personality. Not that we’ve ever looked for personality in women.
(515):

That’s only a quality to look for in a second marriage.

Edgar Allan Poe:

What’s the policy for hitting on a girl at a funeral? She seems more bored than sad.

Mark Z. Danielewski:

(313):

I can’t tell which way is up. Too many corners around his house too. An arbitary assimilation of edges.
(1-313):

Christ, I swear you are the high man’s Dr. Seuss.

Something about the “airports as liminal space” thing makes me really think of John Cheever for this one….:

(734):

Fact: Chilis at the airport in JAX will serve you shots of jack at 6:45 with breakfast. Ya I missed my flight.
(904):

So when does your new flight leave?
(734):

At my shot/hour ratio…. I leave in 16 shots. I love flying

JD’s:

I tried telling the cop that I don’t do drugs, and that if he’d just take me home I could prove it by showing him my D.A.R.E. certificate.

And in conclusion, sound advice from William S. Burroughs:

Now you know for the next time you go in the basement to wear a helmet

(or possibly L. Frank Baum)

oh wait no, here’s sound advice from George Pelecanos:

I should have known our good time had gone to shit when his ankle bracelet started flashing.