“He felt the guilt of inaction, of simply waiting while his life went to waste. No one was worth the gift of his life, no one could possibly be worth that. It belonged to him alone, and he did not deserve it either, because he was letting it waste. It was getting away from him and he made no effort to stop it. He did not know how.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“That period had been the peak of his life, though he had not realized it then. It had gone by without time for reflection, ending while he was still thinking things were going to get better.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“The sky darkened, the liquid singing of the blackbirds diminished and ceased, mud hens swam back to shore, climbed up the banks and huddled in the willows. The lights of a farm came on in the brown distance where patches of tule fog lay on the barren muddy fields. A wind came with the darkness, rattling the license plate, and a low, honking flight of geese passed.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“Still he was uncertain. He wondered if everything had gone as it should. Was that all there was to it? Perhaps it had been celebrated out of proportion because there was nothing else to live for.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“He could not bear the thought of training, not only because of the effort he could never summon from himself now, but also because the idea of fighting was disorienting in its repugnance. He felt that everyone at the Lido Gym was insane. One”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“Hoping never done nothing. It wanting that do it. You got to want to win so bad you can taste it. If you want to win bad enough you win.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“Out in the fog, weary, yet buoyant from the drinks, his mind dulled along with his aches and his energy returning, Tully was free of the sense of impending ordeal that had been with him for weeks. He felt whole, self-sufficient, felt his life had at last opened up and that now nothing stood between him and the future's infinite possibilities.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“All I need's a fight and a woman. Then I'm set. I get the fight I'll get the money. I get the money I'll get the woman. There's some women that love you for yourself, but that don't last long.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“Boys, men, old toothless women had run along beside the car when the train was again in motion, calling, offering bananas, guavas, mangoes, paper cones of flavored ice, Jello shimmering on the palm of a hand, lifting something up to him and fumbling his money, running faster to give him his change, or slower, grinning, shrugging, as the train pulled away. Somewhere he had bought half a roasted cow's head and eaten it held by the horn with a newspaper on his lap. What had caused the diarrhea he did not know.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“The white race is in its decline. We started downhill in 1492 when Columbus discovered syphilis.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“At times it was impossible for him to control the praise and predictions that issued from him like thanks, and he was aware of exaggerating; yet he felt a boxer needed someone who believed in him, and if it were true that confidence could win fights, then he could not be sure his overestimates were really that at all. Guiding”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
“Profoundly moved, he kissed the lax waiting mouth with exquisite unhappiness.”
― Leonard Gardner, quote from Fat City
Leonard Gardner
Born place: Stockton, California, The United States
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“Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies.”
― Edmund Morris, quote from The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
“He had one of those typical piece of shit days. The grind always. At least this time he had the guys to stay away from the bar and not drive home to the wife and kid drunk. He got home and immediately everything pissed him off. Sometimes the way his wife looked at him made him want to kill himself. The way she all of a sudden appeared like a total stranger. The vacancy in her eyes, it was bad. He took his son's favourite plastic mug, the one with the picture of Magic Johnson, and threw it into the trash. He felt better but not much.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting. No, this couldn't be; he would have remembered her. It was not, he affirmed, that she had an extraordinary beauty--no, though her face was attractive enough; it was that something about her moved him. Feature for feature, even some of the ladies of the photographs could do better; but she lapsed forth to this heart--had lived, or wanted to--more than just wanted, perhaps regretted how she had lived--had somehow deeply suffered: it could be seen in the depths of those reluctant eyes, and from the way the light enclosed and shone from her, and within her, opening realms of possibility: this was her own. Her he desired. His head ached and eyes narrowed with the intensity of his gazing, then as if an obscure fog had blown up in the mind, he experienced fear of her and was aware that he had received an impression, somehow, of evil. He shuddered, saying softly, it is thus with us all. Leo brewed some tea in a small pot and sat sipping it without sugar, to calm himself. But before he had finished drinking, again with excitement he examined the face and found it good: good for Leo Finkle. Only such a one could understand him and help him seek whatever he was seeking. She might, perhaps, love him. How she had happened to be among the discards in Salzman's barrel he could never guess, but he knew he must urgently go find her.”
― Bernard Malamud, quote from The Magic Barrel
“modern science hasn’t managed to come up with answers to any of the most basic questions. How did life first appear on earth? How does evolution work? Is it a series of random events, or does it have a set teleological direction? There are all kinds of theories, but we haven’t been able to prove one of them. The structure of the atom is not a miniature of the solar system, it’s something much more difficult to grasp, full of what you might call latent power. And when we try to observe the subatomic world, we find that the mind of the observer comes into play in subtle ways. The mind, my friend! The very same mind which, ever since Descartes, proponents of the mechanistic view of the universe considered subordinate to the body-machine. And now we find that the mind influences observed results. So I give up. Nothing surprises me. I’m prepared to accept anything that happens in this world. I actually kind of envy people who can still believe in the omnipotence of modern science.”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“Homer’s Iliad was the cultural encyclopedia of pre-literate Greece, the didactic vehicle that provided men with guidance for the management of their spiritual, ethical, and social lives.”
― Marshall McLuhan, quote from The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects
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