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9cf7f8b
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Fearful of missing anything, he read on, filled with this anticipation which was half terror, of coming upon something which would touch him, not simply touch him but lift him and carry him away.
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William Gaddis |
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a6af019
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Esther liked books out where everyone could see them, a sort of graphic index to the intricate labyrinth of her mind arrayed to impress the most casual guest, a system of immediate introduction which she had found to obtain in a number of grimy intellectual households in Greenwich Village.
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William Gaddis |
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f5fae11
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We've had the goddam Ages of Faith, we've had the goddam Age of Reason. This is the Age of Publicity
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William Gaddis |
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abc073a
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Venerable age had not, for him, arranged that derelict landscape against which it is privileged to sit and pick its nose, break wind, and damn the course of youth groping among the obstacles erected, dutifully, by its own hands earlier, along the way of that sublime delusion known as the pursuit of happiness. Not to be confused with the state of political bigotry, mental obstinacy, financial security, sensual atrophy, emotional penury, an..
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humor
recognitions
maturity
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William Gaddis |
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a9bc6cb
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where would Christianity be today if Jesus had been given ten to twenty with time off for good behavior
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William Gaddis |
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91bc64e
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The function of this school is custodial. It's here to keep these kids off the streets until the girls are big enough to get pregnant and the boys are old enough to go out and hold up a gas station.
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William Gaddis |
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91fc6b3
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The ship's surgeon was a spotty unshaven little man whose clothes, arrayed with smudges, drippings, and cigarette burns, were held about him by an extensive network of knotted string, The buttons down the front of those duck trousers had originally been made, with all of false economy's ingenious drear deception, of coated cardboard. After many launderings they persisted as a row of gray stumps posted along the gaping portals of his fly. Th..
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William Gaddis |
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7f73816
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The dirty Arab children sold peanuts from the top of the basket and hashish from the bottom. They spoke a masterful unintimidated French in guttural gasps, coming from a land where it was regarded neither as the most beautiful language, as in America, nor the only one, as in France.
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William Gaddis |
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4369dce
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I mean I get used to myself at night, it takes that long sometimes. The first thing in the morning I feel sort of undefined, but by midnight you've done all the things you have to do, I mean all the things like meeting people and, you know, and paying bills, and by night those things are done because by then there's nothing you can do about them if they aren't done, so there you are alone and you have the things that matter, after the whole..
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William Gaddis |
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3a89ab7
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It rained; then it snowed, and the snow stayed on the paved ground for long enough to become evenly blacked with soot and smoke-fall, evenly but for islands of yellow left by uptown dogs. Then it rained again, and the whole creation was transformed into cold slop, which made walking adventuresome. Then it froze; and every corner presented opportunity for entertainment, the vastly amusing spectacle of well-dressed people suspended in the ind..
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William Gaddis |
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c6fe652
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He stood there unsteady in the cold, mumbling syllables which almost resolved into her name, as though he could recall, and summon back, a time before death entered the world, before accident, before magic, and before magic despaired, to become religion.
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William Gaddis |
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454463f
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TO A CHILD, BEHELD IN SUMMER RAIMENT Little girl, one lesser garment will suffice to clothe your crotch, Hide that undiscovered cavern Where old Time will wind his watch.
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William Gaddis |
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98f49d9
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Holy things and holy places, out of mind under the cauterizing brilliance of the summer son, reared up now as the winter sun struck from the south, casting shadows coldly upon the avenues where the people followed and went in, wearing winter hearts on their sleeves for the plucking.
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religion
sentimentalism
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William Gaddis |
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44e5a2d
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the face of Christ in your van der Goes, no one could call that a lie.
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William Gaddis |
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1d01f9e
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and she turned for the stairs as the sound of rain came, finally, scattered across the roof, a fall that now gave substance to the stilled beams of headlamps in the drive where those of flashlights rose and fell to the cadenced steps come back and round the range of yew and up the terrace and through the door to fall on broken glass and flee across the inkstained carpet, darting, climbing, caught fixed in niches, they scaled the walls and l..
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William Gaddis |
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1d03e86
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The most difficult challenge to the ideal is its transformation into reality, and few ideals survive.
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William Gaddis |
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96ded35
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Money? in a voice that rustled.
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money
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William Gaddis |
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e755081
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Directly he was alone, he was assailed by her simulacra, in all states of acute sorrow, or smiling, of complete abstraction or painful animation, of dress and undress, as he had seen her these last few days: directly he was alone, the images came to mock everything he had seen. Her sadness became shrieking grief, and her animation riotous, immodest in dress and licentious in nakedness, many-limbed as some wild avatar of the Hindu cosmology ..
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William Gaddis |
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989a437
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That fever had passed; but for the rest of his life it never left his eyes.
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William Gaddis |
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413ac55
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Women get desperate, but they don't understand despair.
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women
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William Gaddis |
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5ef2460
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Even in sleep, he was waiting, a little tense like everyone waiting within reach of a telephone, for it to ring. And still, even in sleep, he knew there would be time. Adam, after all, lived for nine hundred thirty years.
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William Gaddis |
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332f71c
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Thus called upon, he took courage: the sursum corda of an extravagant belch straightened him upright, and he answered, -- Whfffck? Whether this was an approach to discussion he had devised himself, or a subtle adaptation of the Socratic method of questioning perfected in the local athenaeums which he attended until closing time, was not to be known; for the answer was, -- Stand aside. -- Here, don't goway. Here, how do youfffk. . He licked ..
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William Gaddis |
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bc7e1af
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You see I still have confidence in you sir, or should I say the artist who dwells within you, the artist who disdains such mundane details as selecting a fresh shirt in the morning, who steps forth into the workday world the rest of us inhabit indifferent to the glances he draws because his shoes fail to match, why? Because his mind has been elsewhere, his inner ear tuned to the sonorous tones of horn and kettledrum, tones it is his sacred ..
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William Gaddis |
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7a4aaf1
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But what I remember is the countryside then, the brilliance of outdoors and outwindows, and the sunlight streaming through the lozenge shapes of the glass, and we were locked away from it, locked inside to worship. And there was the sun out there for everyone else to see. Good God, tell me Clovis wasn't lonely at dawn. Tell me he wasn't sick at the sunset.
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William Gaddis |
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dc1fd3c
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None of us grew but the business.
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William Gaddis |
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24ed049
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said, --Monasteries are a good thing for America, they help keep the homosexuals off the streets.
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William Gaddis |
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27b760f
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A man's damnation is his own damned business.
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William Gaddis |
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bad5b3d
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fragments of a conversation she had left a little earlier (on Rilke, not Rilke's poetry but Rilke the man, who refused to be psychoanalyzed for fear of purging his genius);
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William Gaddis |
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8fa7791
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Human, we treat them as we treat others, take for granted services to which they did not pretend. But we force telephones to corrupt intimacy while they pretend to preserve it by keeping alive only its dangerous immediate symptoms. Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a t..
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William Gaddis |
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b07cfb7
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I, it's just, listen, criticism? It's the most important art now, it's the one we need most now. Criticism is the art we need most today. But not, don't you see? not the "if I'd done it myself . . ." Yes, a, a disciplined nostalgia, disciplined recognitions"
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William Gaddis |
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51bb42e
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They write for people who read with the surface of their minds, people with reading habits that make the smallest demands on them, people brought up reading for facts, who know what's going to come next and want to know what's coming next, and get angry at surprises.
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William Gaddis |
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da3c1f3
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The Australian sculptor who made leather sandals said that Beethoven's duet for viola and cello sounded to him like two bulky women rummaging under a bed. Behind him a girl said, --Of course I like music, but not just to listen to.
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William Gaddis |
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260d987
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And someone said, --Nothing queer about Carruthers . . . to conclude, once for all, the story of that subaltern and his mare.
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William Gaddis |
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a702358
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A product would drop out of sight overnight without advertising, I don't care what it is, a book or a brand of soap, it would drop out of sight. We've had the goddam Ages of Faith, we've had the goddam Age of Reason. This is the Age of Publicity.
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William Gaddis |
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5a9899a
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I can't imagine cutting my wrists in Pokheepsie
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William Gaddis |
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e69fd38
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Of course, if Saint Peter could come out today upon these streets below he would find all he could wish, voices from nowhere, music from unpopulated boxes, men ascending divine distances in gas balloons, and traveling at the speed of sound, apparitions from nowhere appear on the screen; the sick are raised from the dead, life is prolonged so that every detail of pain may be relished, the blind are given eyes and the cripples forced to walk,..
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William Gaddis |
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f45cc98
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are a good thing for America, they help keep the homosexuals off the streets.
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William Gaddis |
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d7c110f
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He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correc..
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William Gaddis |
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aab8301
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In this world, God must serve the Devil.
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William Gaddis |
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5dea6b4
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Most people are clever because they don't know how to be honest.
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William Gaddis |
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3ba1199
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Originality is a device that untalented people use to impress other untalented people, and protect themselves from talented people . . .
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William Gaddis |
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355c148
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Someone had already remarked that Bruckner had been Hitler's favorite composer, someone else, that there was something wrong with any young person who really enjoyed the late Beethoven; someone had already confided that the soap business in America amounted to seven million dollars a year, someone else that advertising amounted to seven billion.
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William Gaddis |
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4fbf247
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Suffer barbaric childhood to give and receive remorselessly; civilized age learns to protect what it has, to neither give nor accept freely, to trust it's own mistrust above faith, and intriguing others above the innocent. Intrigue, after all, is rational, something the mind can sink it's teeth into, and defeat it with the good digestion of reason, a hopeless prospect for the toothless heart, and God only knows what innocence will do next.
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William Gaddis |
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2442fd9
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You and I doctor, on the beach.
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William Gaddis |