“Also, I had not yet found out about time; I was still under the illusion that I had plenty of time - time for this, time for that, time for everything, time to waste.”
― Joseph Mitchell, quote from Up in the Old Hotel
“it takes almost a lifetime to learn how to do a thing simply.”
― Joseph Mitchell, quote from Up in the Old Hotel
“Gould is a night wanderer, and he has put down descriptions of dreadful things he has seen on dark New York streets – descriptions, for example, of the herds of big gray rats that come out in the hours before dawn in some neighborhoods of the lower East Side and Harlem and unconcernedly walk the sidewalks. ‘I sometimes believe that these rats are not rats at all,’ he says, ‘but the damned and aching souls of tenement landlords.”
― Joseph Mitchell, quote from Up in the Old Hotel
“My grandfather used to like the word 'mitigate,'" Harry said. "He liked the sound of it, and he used it whenever he could. When he was a very old man, he often got on the subject of dying. 'You cant talk your way out,' he'd often say, 'and you can't buy your way out, and you can't shoot your way out, and the only thing that mitigates the matter in the slightest is the fact that nobody else is going to escape. Nobody-no, not one.'"
"I know, I know," said Mr. Hewitt, "but what's the purpose of it?"
"You supported your wife, didn't you?" asked Harry. "You raised a family, didn't you? That's the purpose of it."
'That's no purpose," said Mr. Hewitt. "The same thing that's going to happen to me is going to happen to them."
"The generations have to keep coming along," said Harry. "That's all I know."
"You're put here, " said Mr. Hewitt, "and you're allowed to eat and draw breath and go back and forth a few short years, and about the time you get things in shape where you can sit down and enjoy them you wind up in a box in a hole in the ground, and as far as I can see, there's no purpose to it whatsoever.”
― Joseph Mitchell, quote from Up in the Old Hotel
“When Gould arrives at a party, people who have never seen him before usually take one look at him and edge away. Before the evening is over, however, a few of them almost always develop a kind of puzzled respect for him; they get him in a corner, ask him questions, and try to determine what is wrong with him. Gould enjoys this. "When you came over and kissed my hand," a young woman told him one night, "I said to myself, 'what a nice old gentleman.' A minute later I looked around and you were bouncing up and down with your shirt off, imitating a wild Indian. I was shocked. Why do you have to be such an exhibitionist?" "Madam," Gould said, "it is the duty of the bohemian to make a spectacle of himself. If my informality leads you to believe that I'm a rum-dumb, or that I belong in Bellevue, hold fast to that belier, hold fast, hold fast, and show your ignorance.”
― Joseph Mitchell, quote from Up in the Old Hotel
“My grandfather used to like the word 'mitigate,'" Harry said. "He liked the sound of it, and he used it whenever he could. When he was a very old man, he often got on the subject of dying. 'You cant talk your way out,' he'd often say, 'and you can't buy your way out, and you can't shoot your way out, and the only thing that mitigates the matter in the slightest is the fact that nobody else is going to escape. Nobody-no, not one.'"
"I know, I know," said Mr. Hewitt, "but what's the purpose of it?"
"You supported your wife, didn't you?" asked Harry. "You raised a family, didn't you? That's the purpose of it."
'That's no purpose," said Mr. Hewitt. "The same thing that's going to happen to me is going to happen o them."
"The generations have to keep coming along," said Harry. "That's all I know."
"You're put here, " said Mr. Hewitt, "and you're allowed to eat and draw breath and go back and forth a few short years, and about the time you get things in shape where you can sit down and enjoy them you wind up in a box in a hole in the ground, and as far as I can see, there's no purpose to it whatsoever.”
― Joseph Mitchell, quote from Up in the Old Hotel
Joseph Mitchell
Born place: in Fairmont, North Carolina, The United States
Born date July 27, 1908
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“I need to know why I’m supposed to go through the rest of my life without being able to talk to her. Hug her. Hear her laugh. Watch the sunset with her. Watch her play her violin. Kiss her forehead. Tell her I love her. Hear her say it back. Why? Why?!”
― Kim Holden, quote from Gus
“When the tiger executes a merger with the goat, which one walks away?”
― Anne McCaffrey, quote from Acorna: The Unicorn Girl
“Little Robin had been brought by Lord Orthallen—although he had the feeling that his lord did not realize it. The boy was a part of his household, though Orthallen seemed to have long since forgotten the fact; and when the order came to pack up the household and move to the Border, Robin found himself in the tail of the baggage train, with no small bewilderment. He'd been at a loss in the encampment, wandering about until someone had seen him and realized that a small child had no place in a camp preparing for warfare. So he was sent packing; first off with Elspeth, then pressed into service by the Healers. They'd set him to fetching and carrying for Dirk, thinking that the child was far too young to be able to pick anything up from the casual talk around him, and that Dirk wouldn't think to interrogate a child as young as he.
They were wrong on both counts.
Robin was very much aware of what was going on—not surprising, since it concerned his adored Talia. He was worried sick, and longing for an adult to talk to. And Dirk was kind and gentle with him—and had he but known it, desperate enough for news to have questioned the rats in the walls if he thought it would get him anywhere.
Dirk knew all about Robin and his adoration of Talia. If anyone knew where she was being kept and what her condition was, that boy would.
Dirk bided his time. Eventually the Healers stopped overseeing his every waking moment. Finally there came a point when they began leaving him alone for hours at a time. He waited then, until Robin was sent in alone with his lunch—alone, unsupervised, and more than willing to talk—and put the question to him.
Dirk had no intention of frightening the boy, and his tone was gentle, "I need your help. The Healers won't answer my questions, and I need to know about Talia."
Robin had turned back with his hand still on the doorknob; at the mention of Talia's name, his expression was one of distress.
"I'll tell you what I know, sir," he replied, his voice quavering a little. "But she's hurt real bad and they won't let anybody but Healers see her."
"Where is she? Do you have any idea who's taking care of her?"
The boy not only knew where she was, but the names and seniority of every Healer caring for her—and the list nearly froze Dirk's heart. They'd even pulled old Farnherdt out of retirement—and he'd sworn that no case would ever be desperate enough for them to call on him.”
― Mercedes Lackey, quote from Arrow's Fall
“According to the man, who identified himself as Morton Thornton, the night got real long and by midnight, he was darn well wed to one of the lovelier inhabitants of the dish, a comely middle-aged amoeba of unknown parentage named Rita. When he was rescued on the morning of the following day, Morton plumb forgot about his single-celled nuptials and went back to his daytime job tasting the contents of open pop bottles for backwash and cigarette butts. Only sixteen years later, when a brilliant Sacajawea Junior High roving reporter—who shall remain nameless—discovered the product of this union lurking among us right here at Sac Junior High, was Morton’s long-held secret discovered. “This intrepid reporter was present three weeks into Dale Thornton’s third try at seventh grade, when the young Einstein bet this reporter and several other members of the class that he could keep a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth from the beginning of fifth period Social Studies until the bell. The dumb jerk only lasted twenty minutes, after which he sprinted from the room, not to be seen for the rest of the day. When he returned on the following morning, he told Mr. Getz he had suddenly become ill and had to go home, but without a written excuse (he probably didn’t have a rock big enough for his dad to chisel it on) he was sent to the office. The principal, whose intellectual capacities lie only fractions of an IQ point above Dale’s, believed his lame story, and Dale was readmitted to class. Our dauntless reporter, however, smelled a larger story, recognizing that for a person to attempt this in the first place, even his genes would have to be dumber than dirt. With a zeal rivaled only by Alex Haley’s relentless search for Kunta Kinte, he dived into Dale’s seamy background, where he discovered the above story to be absolutely true and correct. Further developments will appear in this newspaper as they unfold.”
― Chris Crutcher, quote from Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes
“What did you—" He swallowed. His voice was raspy. "What did you do to him?"
"Sightseeing. Your turn."
He shivered. "No, that's all right.”
― Steven Gould, quote from Jumper
The Lost Twin
The Whispering Swarm
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