The Moviegoer

by Walker Percy

It seemed like a fine idea, sleeping in shelters or under the stars in the cool evergreens, and later hopping freights. In fact this was what I was sure I wanted to do.

Arabia Deserta

It Happened One Night which was itself very good. A memorable night. The only difficulty was that though the universe had been disposed of, I myself was left over. There I lay in my hotel room with my search over yet still obliged to draw one breath and then the next.

in the thick singing darkness of Delta summer

a secret sense of wonder about the enduring, about all the nights, the rainy summer nights at twelve and one and two o’clock when the seats endured alone in the empty theater. The enduring is something which must be accounted for. One cannot simply shrug it off.

He dreamed, I know, of a place of quiet breathing and a deep sleep under the stars and next to the sweet earth.

I muse along as quietly as a ghost. Instead of trying to sleep I try to fathom the mystery of this suburb at dawn.

Somewhere it, the English soul, received an injection of romanticism which nearly killed

“To me, books and people and things are endlessly fascinating.

At night the years come back and perch around my bed like ghosts.

The nearly full moon swims through streaming ragtags of cloud and sheds a brilliant light on the Capitol dome

The wind and the space—they are the genie-soul.

This Midwestern sky is the nakedest loneliest sky in America. To escape it, people live inside and underground.