Quotes from book

The October Country

“Beer's intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it.”

“Ah, art! Ah, life! The pendulum swinging back and forth, from complex to simple, again to complex. From romantic to realistic, back to romantic.”

“More murders are committed at ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit than any other temperature. Over one hundred, it’s too hot to move. Under ninety, cool enough to survive. But right at ninety-two degrees lies the apex of irritability, everything is itches and hair and sweat and cooked pork. The brain becomes a rat rushing around a red-hot maze. The least thing, a word, a look, a sound, the drop of a hair and—irritable murder.”

“He stood very straight and thought of nothing, or at least thought of thinking nothing.”

“THE OCTOBER COUNTRY …that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…”

““Oh,” said Brunilla, the cow-searcher. “A man with wings.”
That was how she took it. She was startled, yes, but she had never been hurt in her life, so she wasn’t afraid of anyone, and it was a fancy thing to see a winged man and she was proud to meet him.”

“All the sadder that Stone, on the brink of his greatest work, turned one day and went off to live in a town we shall call Obscurity by the sea best named The Past.”

“Anna said, “Must they have a reason?”
“No, not if they’re insane, no,” said Juliet. “In that case no reasons are necessary.””