“We were given drinks, and drank them, and talked while we drank them. But talked, here, is a euphemism: we had that conversation about how you make a Martini. The people in Hell, Dr. Rosenbaum had told me once, say nothing but What? Americans in Hell tell each other how to make Martinis.”

—  Randall Jarrell, book Pictures from an Institution

Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 2: “The Whittakers and Gertrude”, p. 40

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Randall Jarrell215
poet, critic, novelist, essayist 1914–1965

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