"... my nemminy there nemminy."

"I wunnert how I ever cudve fealt real up to then. How I ever cudve fealt a live before I begun to take things in like I wer now. I wantit to move I wantit to happen with what ever were happening roun me." 

Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban

8 uv penkuls

"Woan yu pleas tel me how menne Chaynjis thayr ar? The Littl Man sed, As menne as reqwyrd. Eusa sed, Reqwyrd by wut? The Little Man sed, Reqwyrd by the idea uv yu. Eusa sed, Wut is the idear uv me? The Little Man sed, That we doan no til yuv gon thru aul yur Chaynjis."

Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban

"'You bes start putting things to gether for your self you aint a kid no mor.'"

Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban

"You've declared your contempt for the world-- go get 'em, sport!"

Crow. T. Robot, MST3K, "Parts: The Clonus Horror" (Season 8, Ep. 11)

the happy few

600 pages!
one-quarter unread, dissolved
in the spin cycle.

Laundered, Stendhal's pulp
washed into 5-dozen pairs
of white cotton briefs.

Fibers in fibers:
what falls off is a flurry
swept off hardwood floors.

The Element of a Crime (1984)

Soapdish (1991)

"You want to know what's crazy: people waiting for one big sign to push them into doing something they ought to be doing in the first place. ...What were we waiting for? We could have been better people all on our own. But whatever. If you want to wait for a magic sign to be happy, then good luck to you, lady. I'm walking out now to help my possibly-dying brother. You can shoot me in the back of the head if you want."

Earl Hickey, "Made a Lady Think I was God," My Name is Earl (2006)

27. First Experience of Life (Barfly, 1987)

"...the first check inflicted on the dream that had been sweeping Julien away."

"'My God! To be happy, to be loved, is that all there is to it?' Such was Julien's first thought when he got back to his room. He was in that state of amazement and deep uneasiness into which a soul descends when it gets what it has desired for a long time. Such a soul, in the habit of desiring, now finds no more desire but has as yet no memories. Like a soldier coming off parade, Julien was studiously occupied in reviewing all the details of his conduct. 

'Did I let myself down in any way? Have I played may part well?' 

What part? That of a man who is accustomed to shine in front of women."

The Red and the Black, Stendhal (M-H B)

"September morn' dips a dainty toe into a Broadway billboard, and unshivering-gazes down upon a street that only yesterday was choked with summer. 

But the refuse is there, where the summer has passed and left pieces of itself: in the scratch and warp of summertime blues still screeching out of the loud speakers; the sunny mannequins, wax slightly melted, waiting in shop windows to be replaced by the fall and winter models; the faint odors of the sun-warmed perfume, th' souvenir of the golden girl who walked right past you, turned the corner, vanished into a place where summer never dies.  

A place not open to you, kid. Only autumns ahead of you, kid. Start using it; it's already given you two murders: a woman in the front seat of a car, a man scooped out of the earth from the teeth of a steam shovel. What more can you ask? September's showering her gifts on you, kid, take them! they're all yours!"

Detective Danny Clover, "The Anna Compton Murder Case," Broadway is My Beat (1951)

"Like Hercules he found himself placed, not between vice and virtue, but between the mediocrity consequent on assured well-being and all the heroic dreams of his youth. So I lack true resolution, he said to himself. This was the suspicion which gave him most pain. I'm not the wood out of which great men are fashioned, since I'm afraid that eight years spent earning my bread will rob me of the sublime energy required to do extraordinary things."

The Red and the Black, Stendhal (M-H B)

"'My friend,' he advised once more, 'became a good independent country dweller, worthy and educated, rather than a priest without a vocation.'"

The Red and the Black, Stendhal (M-H B)

("For he was not a quixote, was he? A quixote imitated great models. What models did he imitate?")

Belly of an Architect (1987)

Herzog, Saul Bellows

"...Moses, in his slightly dazed but intense way, unable to restrain associations, wondered whether she still gave off those odors of feminine secretions..."

Herzog, Saul Bellows

Belly of an Architect (1987)

"Whatever had come over him during these last months, the spell, really seemed to passing, really going. ... At this time he had no messages for anyone. Nothing. Not a single word."

Herzog, Saul Bellows

"'Oh, Lord, let no bad man come unto my chubbiness.'"

Rocky II (1979)

Herzog, Saul Bellows

"And anyway he was growing tired of his obsession."

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)

Herzog, Saul Bellows

Cronos (1993)

"That was hardly a joke. When a man's breast feels like a cage from which all the dark birds have flown--he is free, he is light. And he longs to have his vultures back again. He wants his customary struggles, his nameless, empty works, his anger, his afflictions and his sins."

Herzog, Saul Bellows

"The antagonism, as Mama felt it, was mystical -- a matter of souls."

The Paper Chase (1973)

Herzog, Saul Bellows

"Napoleon Street, rotten, toylike, crazy and filthy, riddled, flogged with harsh weather--the bootlegger's boys reciting ancient prayers."

"Herzog was thinking, however, how she found the strength to spoil her children. She certainly spoiled me. Once, at nightfall, she was pulling me on the sled, over crusty ice, the tiny glitter of snow, perhaps four o'clock of a short day in January. Near the grocery we met an old baba in a shawl who said, 'Why are you pulling him, daughter!' Mama, dark under the eyes. Her slender cold face. She was breathing hard. She wore the torn seal coat and a red pointed wool cap and thin button boots. Clusters of dry fish hung in the shop, a rancid sugar smell, cheese, soap--a terrible dust of nutrition came from the open door. The bell on a coil of wire was bobbing, ringing. 'Daughter, don't sacrifice your strength to children,' said the shawled crone in the freezing dusk of the street. I wouldn't get off the sled. I pretended not to understand. One of life's hardest jobs, to make quick understanding slow. I think I succeeded, thought Herzog."

Herzog, Saul Bellows

"A year of work saved the house from collapse."

Cronos (1993)

"And to truth. And truth is true only as it brings down more disgrace and dreariness upon human beings, so that if it shows anything except evil it is illusion, and not truth. But of course he, Herzog, predictably breaking such trends, had characteristically, obstinately, defiantly, blindly but without sufficient courage or intelligence tried to be a marvelous Herzog, a Herzog who, perhaps clumsily, tried to live out marvelous qualities vaguely comprehended. Granted he had gone too far, beyond his talents and his powers, but this was the cruel difficulty of a man who had strong impulses, even faith, but lacked clear ideas."

Herzog, Saul Bellows

"All you needed was a train ride. It has turned the trick."

The Conversation (1974)

Herzog, Saul Bellow

"Just cling to the status quo and avoid leaps in the dark?"

She-Devil (1989)

"Every sod seemed to exude a yearning for beauty soon muted by languor."

The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa

"Only then did she dress herself in herself..."

Gird me, O Lord, with the cincture of justice and the cord of purity that I may unite the many affections of my heart in the love of you alone. Amen.

Dominican Rite Vesting Prayers

I don't recognize
the old pool of images.
(How else can I say?)

"'Ah, ne touchay pas. C'est dangeray.'"

Rain Man (1988)

"Then he realized suddenly that Ramona had made herself into a sort of sexual professional (or priestess). He was used to dealing with vile amateurs lately. I didn't know that I could make out with a true sack artist. 

But is that the secret goal of my vague pilgrimage?..."

Herzog, Saul Bellow

"Swingers" The Wonder Years (1988 TV)

"The square shapes were vivid, not inert, they gave him a sense of fateful motion, almost intimacy. Somehow he felt himself part of it all--in the rooms, in the stores, cellars--and at the same time he sensed the danger of these multiple excitements. But he'd be all right. He was overstimulated. He had to calm down these overstrained galloping nerves, put out this murky fire inside."

Herzog, Saul Bellow

"Late in spring Herzog had been overcome by the need to explain, to have it out, to justify, to put in perspective, to clarify, to make amends."

Pumpkin (2002)

"Considering his entire life, he realized that he had mismanaged everything--everything. His life was, as the phrase goes, ruined. But since it had not been much to begin with, there was not much to grieve about. ... 

... He went on taking stock, lying face down on the sofa. Was he a clever man or an idiot? Well, he could not at this time claim to be clever. He might once have had the makings of a clever character, but he had chosen to be dreamy instead, and the sharpies cleaned him out. What more?..." 

Herzog, Saul Bellow

"He looked keenly at everything but he felt half blind."

Barfly (1987)

Herzog, Saul Bellow

"... even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won't."

"Concetta withdrew into her room; she felt no emotion whatsoever; she seemed to be living in a world known to her yet strange, which had already ceded all the impulses it could give her and now consisted only of pure forms. The portrait of her father was just a few square inches of canvas; the green cases were just a few square yards of wood. ... Still she could feel nothing; the inner emptiness was complete; but she did sense an unpleasant atmosphere emanating from the heap of fur. That was today's distress: even poor Bendicò was hinting at bitter memories. She rang the bell. 'Annetta,' she said, 'this dog has really become too moth-eaten and dusty. Take it out and throw it away.' 

As the carcass was dragged off, the glass eyes stared at her with the humble reproach of things that are thrown away, that are being annulled. A few minutes later what remained of Bendicò was flung into a corner of the courtyard visited every day by the dustman. During the flight down from the window the form recomposed itself for an instant; in the air one could have seen dancing a quadruped with long whiskers, and its right foreleg seemed to be raised in imprecation. Then all found peace in a heap of livid dust."

The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Bowfinger (1999)