Quotes from Eustace Chisholm and the Works

James Purdy ·  300 pages

Rating: (257 votes)


“Some people confess in the flesh, others on paper.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“Why, if Daniel Haws was to take out his naked cock and shake it in your face, you’d die of apoplexy.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“Mexican marijuana, which he called the schoolboy’s consolation.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“Amos, talk about pearls for teeth ... you got ‘em. No wonder the boys go for you, because I could too and if I had something to push between those pearly teeth I’d be first in line.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“It was paper, as he had once joked to Amos, that he was really queer for.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works



“One fine day you’ve got to give your body to somebody, or turn into a fully-fledged zombie.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“Carla had the American woman’s fixed idea that love can cure, love can heal, love can bind a flowing wound.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“She made no point of concealing the truth, for the truth was all she could bear now.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“Ace sat down and inflated his cheeks like the wind gods in Italian paintings.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“Most people have their buttons,” Eustace continued.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works



“There was the cruel kind of Eustace silence.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“Maureen had been born with the face of a gargoyle on the body of a sylph.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


“One morning while drinking coffee with Amos, Daniel Haws looked up suddenly, as if feeling the boy’s eyes on him, and said:
“Tryin’ to burn holes starin’ like that?”
“Guess I was just resting my eyes on you so as not to look at your wallpaper,” Amos gave a sour apology.
Daniel closed the book he was reading, a volume of Rhodes’s history of the United States, and took a careful look at the kitchen wallpaper.
“Yes,” he admitted, “that wallpaper is goddam ancient.”
― James Purdy, quote from Eustace Chisholm and the Works


About the author

James Purdy
Born place: in Hicksville, Ohio, The United States
Born date July 17, 1914
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