Martin Dressler: The Tale Of An American Dreamer Quotes
"But this is a perilous privilege, which the gods watch jealously, waiting for the flaw, the little flaw, that brings everything to ruin, in the end."
"He liked the names of the smoking and chewing tobaccos: Bull Durham, Lone Jack, Wine-sap, Diadem of Old Virginia, Daniel Webster."
"Martin liked to hear his mother tell that story, for he saw that his serious father, in his own way, had a touch of the extravagant."
"He felt calm and clear and wise and old. He was old, old and calm, calm as old Tecumseh by the door."
"Charley laughed aloud and clapped Martin on the back, saying he was a sharp little devil."
"He liked his new hatless uniform, with its chocolate-brown jacket and brass buttons, and the shiny mahogany counter."
"Martin realized that he had been careless, that by appearing cool he had hurt Mr. Henning in his pride."
"The solution, Martin argued, was to move in both directions at once—to introduce every mechanical improvement without fail, and at the same time to emphasize the past, especially in decor."
"People needed to be assured that they weren’t missing the latest improvements, while at the same time they wanted to be told that nothing ever changed."
"And in his blood he felt a surge of restlessness, as if he were a steam train spewing fiery coalsmoke into the black night sky as he roared along a trembling El track, high above the dark storefronts, the gaslit saloons, the red-lit doorways, the cheap beer dives, the dance halls, the gambling joints, the face in the doorway, the sudden cry in the night."
"People were curious and would try anything once; the trick was to get 'em to stick."
"Now that ads were everywhere you looked, people were starting to feel that the very fact of repeated ads was a sign of success."
"A good woman who loves you right is the greatest gift a man can have on God's earth."
"I don’t want to take it. I want to leave it."
"It was as if her perplexing, irritating coolness, her difficulty, were a sign of her high value."
"It was Caroline after all whom he had married, or was about to marry, or had somehow forgotten to marry."
"Believe me. You already know everything about the business."
"I want someone in there who knows the business, someone I can trust."
"Let me tell you something. You already practically manage that cafe. So do it in public."
"For nothing had changed, nothing would ever change, throughout eternity he would step from the lobby into the lamplit parlor where three women sat waiting."
"The desire to be in the thick of things, and the equal and opposite desire to escape from the horrible thick of things to some peaceful rural place."
"It simply sat there, waiting for the rest of the city to catch up."
"Every effort had been made to draw the eye away from the monotony of vertical repetition to interruptive or irregular features."
"The real battle against symmetry took place inside, where no two apartments were alike."
"A room containing a wigwam, a wax squaw gathering sticks, a young brave hacking a rock with a sharpened stone tool."
"These rooms seemed to some commentators a puzzling intrusion of the museum into the world of the hotel."
"At the end of a corridor on the sixth floor a four-room apartment had been transformed into an artificial cave, with narrow dim-lit passageways and a real waterfall."
"These playful rooms, which Harwinton had named Relaxation Rooms, gave to the hotel a slightly theatrical flavor."
"Martin followed the newspaper reports with close interest, puzzled himself by an occasional note of bewilderment or blame."
"He was above all pleased by the interest shown in the first three underground levels."
"Martin had taken a modest apartment for himself and Caroline on the sixteenth floor, facing the river."
"Emmeline had quickly become ardent in her loyalty to the Dressler and often accompanied Martin on his rounds."
"The Theater District in particular was attracting enthusiastic audiences."
"The roof garden was itself a popular spot, with its railed promenade, its flower gardens and small orchard of fruit trees."
"Martin, who was used to being flirted with by attractive women, detected in Claire Moore no surreptitious looks, no secret signs."
"Martin felt something burst in his neck. 'What the devil is that supposed to mean?'"
"Martin spent most of his day inspecting his hotel, talking with workers, and in general considering ways to improve the operation of the Dressler."
"As Martin spoke, he could feel Claire Moore listening closely to him, penetrating him with her attention."
"The Grand Cosmo opened on September 5, 1905, five days after Martin’s thirty-third birthday."
"It was said that under the thirteenth level a maze of interconnecting passageways had been constructed, each with stairways leading down to still lower levels, unimaginably far down."
"He became reluctant to leave the Grand Cosmo, as if the act of passing through its doors were a form of abandonment, of betrayal."
"He took up shifting residence in the Grand Cosmo, living in unrented courtyard dwellings."
"He waited for the public to come. It was bound to come. It had always come."
"He rode the elevators, strolled through the Pleasure Park and the Palace of Wonders."
"For after all the Grand Cosmo was not a hotel, not a hotel at all, but something quite different."
"I simply love it here. I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world."
"For the next two days he brooded savagely over the unfinished sentence as if it contained the secret he had been looking for."
"Was it the sense of the limitless that prevented people from flocking to the Grand Cosmo?"
"Perhaps he was being punished for something."
"The sense of failure filled him with an odd energy."
"For there could be no half-measures, in failure as in success."
"He embraced his failure, threw himself into the idea of failure as into a new and soaring creation."
"Only permanent residents who signed long-term leases would be admitted to the community of the Grand Cosmo."
"The sense of failure filled him with an odd energy—he wasn’t going to sit in a melancholy stupor."
"He understood that the Grand Cosmo was a commercial failure and would vanish like the Bellingham."
"He came to the main lobby and sat down heavily in a corner chair."
"One by one the Dressler, the New Dressler, and the Grand Cosmo would melt away."
"For when you woke from a long dream of stone, then you wanted to lie there with closed eyes."
"He had slipped out of his life, he had passed through a crack in the world, into this place."
"For when you woke from a long dream, into the new morning, then try as you might you couldn’t not hear, beyond your door, the sounds of the new day."
"He felt like walking. Martin got up and brushed off the seat of his pants with his hat."