Quotes from work

The Rum Diary

“I felt a tremendous distance between myself and everything real.”

“She was wearing the same clothes, but now she looked haggard and dirty. The delicate illusions that get us through life can only stand so much strain.”

“He had come so far from himself that I don't
think he knew who he was anymore.”

“He wandered into the Newsroom and asked for a job the same way he’d walk into a barbershop and ask for a haircut, and with no more idea of being turned down.”

“He gave my hand a final shake. “Okay, Kemp,” he said with a grin. “Thanks a lot – you came through like a champ.” “Hell,” I said, starting the engine. “We’re all champs when we’re drunk.”

“The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who see it coming and jump aside.”

“It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old.”

“I had come to regard him as a loner with no real past and a future so vague there was no sense talking about it.”

“In the meantime, I would drink, rest, and ponder the meaning of this mob.”

“There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.”

“A man can live on his wits and his balls for only so long.”

“Old God sure was in a good mood when he made this place.”

“Whatever he might have denied me was unimportant; it was the
fact that he could deny me anything at all, even what I didn't want”

“and the sad notes floated out to the
patio and hung in the trees like birds too tired to fly”

“sounds of life and movement, people getting ready and people giving up, the sound of hope and the sound of hanging on, and behind them all, the quiet, deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks…”

“I wanted to take off all my clothes and never wear them again.”