Sunday 2.5.50

Marvin's Room (1996) 

"Robert's First Day to Sunday School.

He held the New Testament tightly in his left hand, see?"

"peace to him, you are not those you imagine."

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

"That's how I wanted it--I like privacy...my needs come first. Still, I have here and there talked a little about my life: My father was a grocer; my mother, who helped him, after a long illness, died young. I had a younger brother who lived a hard and lonely life and died in his fifties. My mother and father were gentle, honest, kindly people, and who they were and their affection for me to some degree made up for the cultural deprivation I felt as a child. They weren't educated, but their values were stable.... On the other hand, there were no books that I remember in the house, no records, music, pictures on the wall. On Sundays I listened to somebody's piano through the window. At nine I caught pneumonia..."

Malmud, Bernard. Interview by Daniel Stern. "The Art of Fiction No. 52," The Paris Review.

"It was on the table -- it was spoiling -- it was spoilt!"

"Mrs. Beever's excited mistrust dropped at the mere audacity of this: there was something perceptibly superior in the girl who could meet half way, so cleverly, a suspicion she was quite conscious of and much desired to dissipate. The lady of Eastman looked at her hard, reading her desire in the look she gave back. 'Trust me, trust me,' her eyes seemed to plead; 'don't at all events think me capable of any self-seeking that stupid or poor. I may be dangerous to myself, but I'm not so to others; least of all am I so to you.'"

The Other House, Henry James

Rocky (1976)

"'Patrodeman Madcuso. Uddercover.' A badge flashed in front of George's pimples. 'Cubb alogg wid me.'"

Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

"...judging by their moist edges, the jelly had been sucked."

Back to School (1986)

"If both your wrists were broken, how could you write me a letter?"

Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

DO NOT DISTURB

"'Ignatius, what's all this trash on the floor?' 

'That's my worldview that you see. It must be incorporated into a whole, so be careful where you step.'... 

'If I know it was like this, I'd been in here long ago.' 

'I don't know why you are here now, as a matter of fact, or why you have this sudden compulsion to invade my sanctuary. I doubt whether it will ever be the same after the trauma of this intrusion by an alien spirit.' 

'I came to talk to you, boy. Get your face out of them pillows.'"

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

the pulse

Tulse Luper Suitcases (2003) 

"Perhaps, if records still exist, one could trace resemblances here and there between the two histories, but my impression is that these are nowhere striking."

Goose of Hermogenes, Ithell Colquhoun

Mommie Dearest (1981)

"Certain ghosts feel little of that attraction of haunting which so powerfully influences many others, for these former leave upon the earth a physical manifestation in a human being. Sometimes this counterpart appears among their descendants; but when this is not so, another being is chosen and possessed, though perhaps this one is never wholly alien in a physical sense. The chosen one looks henceforth to the ghost as to an illustrious ancestor, and draws from it authority and inspiration. 

The chosen being may be singled out in various ways, either before or after the death of the possessor. It may happen that those two halves of Plato's sphere cannot join on earth, but must be parted by a dividing dimension before they can work as one, the earth too narrow to hold them. One of them has to die. They struggle to decide which is to be the victim, and at last one of them kills the other. The survivor acts in self-defence, and there are this many murders and suicides that go unrecognized by law. But this being feels, mixed with pain and remorse, a subtle triumph, for it knows that from now onwards it drinks life at a double spring. That very identity which separated it from its stirrer during the day, at night draws them together. They are undivided but working in a manner both hidden and expressed... I am not here any longer, I am dead, it is only my unhappy ghost... I am lying in a small graveyard at the edge of a thirsty plain, the dust is on my eyelids I cannot see, the earth is in my nostrils I cannot breathe, the pebbles are in my ears I cannot hear, the stones are at my feet I cannot move. We two have lain there a single corpse under rocky hills since the beginning of time, and one ghost is still walking, and one has ceased to walk."

Goose of Hermogenes, Ithell Colquhoun

the vow of stability

Days of Heaven (1978)

"So his was the classic Ellis Island story... it must have been extraordinary. He was a very unadventurous man; he didn't have a strong personality--he was timid. He still is a mystery to me. I wonder if he didn't burn himself out in this tremendous initial adventure, where it wasn't really too much for him, and once having a niche for himself somewhere, he just didn't have the guts to become much of a personality."

Gordimer, Nadine. Interview by Jannika Hurwitt. "The Art of Fiction No. 77," The Paris Review.

progress of the soul

Leon: the Professional (1994)

"Unvirtuous weeds might long unvex'd have stood; / But he's short-lived that with his death can do / most good."

"XVII." Progress of the Soul, John Donne