
“Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles.”
Charley
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Context: Nobody dast blame this man. Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
“Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles.”
Before the Battle of Naseby (14 June 1645)
“We'd be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end.”
Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I am the Blues: the Willie Dixon Story (with Don Snowden, 1990), p. 2.
Review for Shoeshine (1946) as quoted in Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me (2004) by Craig Seligman.
Source: Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez (2021) cited in " Cuba’s Only Cosmonaut: Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez https://aldianews.com/articles/leaders/cubas-only-cosmonaut-arnaldo-tamayo-mendez/68439" on Al Día News, 7 December 2021.
The Beaches of Cheyenne, written by Dan Roberts, Bryan Kennedy, and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, Fresh Horses (1995)
I had barely got to the end of the sentence when she closed her eyes and gently slipped away. She was unique, and the world is a better place for having known her. I love you, Linda. note: Last words to his wife, Linda, as recounted by McCartney in a statement released to the press three days after her death
Source: as quoted in "Linda's Death 'Heartbreak' for McCartney" https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=99480655 by Emma Ross, Tucson Citizen (April 21, 1998), p. B1
“Will smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled, moments before he fell from Heaven.”
Source: Clockwork Angel