The Moviegoer Quotes
"It is enough to scare the wits out of anyone, yet I confess I do not find the prospect altogether unpleasant."
"I’ve got bad news for you, son. Scotty is dead. Now it’s all up to you. It’s going to be difficult for you but I know you’re going to act like a soldier."
"It was supposed to be a tragedy, his losing all this, and he seemed to suffer a great deal. On the other hand, things were not so bad after all."
"Overhead was the blackest sky I ever saw; a black wind pushed the lake toward us."
"This morning, for the first time in years, there occurred to me the possibility of a search."
"To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."
"Truthfully, it is the fear of exposing my own ignorance which constrains me from mentioning the object of my search."
"The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life."
"The search always ends in despair. They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place—but what does he do?"
"To tell the truth, I am somewhat worried about her, more so than her stepmother is."
"How much better it would be if they weren’t so damn understanding—if they kicked me out of the house."
"Think how wonderful it would be to fly to Houston and back three times a week for the next twenty years."
"You think I’m kidding? I’m not. It would be wonderful."
"How, then, tasted my own fourteen years since The Oxbow Incident?"
"There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can."
"I believe in the uniqueness and the dignity of the individual."
"I believe in music. I believe in a child’s smile. I believe in love. I also believe in hate."
"Show me a nice Jose cheering up an old lady and I’ll show you two people existing in despair."
"Could a person live twenty-five years, a life of crucifixion, through a misunderstanding?"
"It is not some one thing, as you think. It is everything. It is all so monstrous."
"Suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I’m as cheerful as a nitwit."
"The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide."
"But if I could not kill myself—ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide."
"We’ll never know what you boys went through. But at least your conscience was clear."
"The only way you could carry it off is as another one of your ingenious little researches. Admit it."
"Anyhow, Emily could not wake her up. Whereupon she, Emily, became extremely agitated and asked me to call Dr. Mink."
"But at least there is no malaise and we lie drowsing in the sun, hands clasped in the other's back, until the boat whistle blows."
"But now that fellow has pretty good nerve. He wouldn’t put her in the hospital which would have been the cagey thing to do."
"Beauty, the quest of beauty alone, is a whoredom."
"It doesn’t matter what you are as long as you know!"
"What I want is to believe in someone completely and then do what he wants me to do."
"Oh oh oh," Kate moans and clings to me. "I feel awful. Let’s go to your roomette."