James > James's Quotes

“Hell, it took only your first day in a Montana flop or standing over your mother's unmarked grave to know that equal was the one thing all men were not. A few lived like kings, and the rest hugged the dirt until it cracked open and took them home.”
― Jess Walter, The Cold Millions

“The day before me is fraught with God knows what horrors.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“It was frightening, though, how little time you got. You only became yourself when you were twenty-three or twenty-four. A few years later, you had an old man's chest hair. It wasn't worth it.”
― Roddy Doyle, Bullfighting: Stories

“The whole state of Maine is unlocked.”
― Jonathan Lethem, Dissident Gardens

“You take a shower, your head is up, far away from everything, lost in the clouds, but down in the tub, man, you know who you are.”
― Toby Barlow, Babayaga

“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“There's something uncomfortable about looking at pictures of your parents at a time when they made each other happy.”
― Aminatta Forna, The Hired Man

“It's not your fate to be well treated," Ignatius cried. "You're an overt masochist. Nice treatment will confuse and destroy you.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“Nice bedtime story, mate. Wish I'd heard more of 'em. Might've ended up a better man.”
― Darko Macan, Hellblazer: Ashes and Honey

“The bassist -- always the bassist.”
― Rob Sheffield

“Oh my God! You're wearing your bowling shoes! Only you would wear bowling shoes to your child's sickbed.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces