Karl Wiggins · 177 pages
Rating: (193 votes)
“They drain you sometimes. They really do.
"What's it all about then mate? What's the secret of life? You should know. You're a fucking cab driver."
Yeah, right. (As if I'll learn the secret of life talking to arseholes like you all night).
"Got any saucepan lids, mate? I've got two. I hate them. Bastards, they are. Ruined my life. I hate the bastards."
I keep quiet
"Don't try and rip us off, mate. I've got a key between my knuckles."
(Whatever).
The life of a cab driver. Glimpses into other people's lives.”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab
“They drain you sometimes. They really do.
"What's it all about then mate? What's the secret of life? You should know. You're a fucking cab driver."
Yeah, right. (As if I'll learn the secret of life talking to arseholes like you all night).
"Got any saucepan lids, mate? I've got two. I hate them. Bastards, they are. Ruined my life. I hate the bastards."
I keep quiet
"Don't try and rip us off, mate. I've got a key between my knuckles."
(Whatever).
The life of a cab driver. Glimpses into other people's lives.”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab
“As they call last orders, he’ll walk over to a girl he’s no doubt slept with before, pour half his pint over his own head and the remainder over hers, and with a twinkle in his eye say, “Looks like you’ve pulled again, doesn’t it?”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab
“I’ve come to know him well, and have discovered that shrouded behind his touchy and volatile exterior, there crouches a warm and considerate human being, crying out to be valued and loved”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab
“Through years of experience I’ve discovered that a liar will always look into his drink when telling a lie. But he doesn’t have a drink in a cab, and even if he did I’d have no idea as to whether he were looking into it or not”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab
“Cynthia was originally from Sierra Leone, and I loved the way those two dusky words rolled off her tongue. As we drove along I found myself fascinated with the deep “Oooooohhs” and “Aaaahhhhss” that made up her conversational speech patterns”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab
“Many parts of Watford, especially around Vicarage Road Football Stadium, consist of scuzy warrens of Victorian terraced houses”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab
“Alone in her shelter, she allowed herself tears. When her shelter cooled to the touch she called to Gull, “Coming out!” She eased her head out into the smoky air, looked over at Gull. She imaged they both looked like a couple of sweaty, parboiled turtles climbing out of their shells.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
She laughed. It hurt her throat, but she laughed. “Hey, handsome.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Chasing Fire
“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”
― Richard Dawkins, quote from The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True
“This is Shaun Mason activating security protocol Campbell. The bridge is out, the trees are coming, and I’m pretty sure my hand is evil. Now gimme some sugar, baby.”
― Mira Grant, quote from Deadline
“And we clung to each other like we were drowning because, in a way, we were.”
― Heidi R. Kling, quote from Sea
“The American really loves nothing but his automobile: not his wife his child nor his country nor even his bank-account first (in fact he doesn't really love that bank-account nearly as much as foreigners like to think because he will spend almost any or all of it for almost anything provided it is valueless enough) but his motor-car. Because the automobile has become our national sex symbol. We cannot really enjoy anything unless we can go up an alley for it. Yet our whole background and raising and training forbids the sub rosa and surreptitious. So we have to divorce our wife today in order to remove from our mistress the odium of mistress in order to divorce our wife tomorrow in order to remove from our mistress and so on. As a result of which the American woman has become cold and and undersexed; she has projected her libido on to the automobile not only because its glitter and gadgets and mobility pander to her vanity and incapacity (because of the dress decreed upon her by the national retailers association) to walk but because it will not maul her and tousle her, get her all sweaty and disarranged. So in order to capture and master anything at all of her anymore the American man has got to make that car his own. Which is why let him live in a rented rathole though he must he will not only own one but renew it each year in pristine virginity, lending it to no one, letting no other hand ever know the last secret forever chaste forever wanton intimacy of its pedals and levers, having nowhere to go in it himself and even if he did he would not go where scratch or blemish might deface it, spending all Sunday morning washing and polishing and waxing it because in doing that he is caressing the body of the woman who has long since now denied him her bed.”
― William Faulkner, quote from Intruder in the Dust
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