Walker Percy Quotes

“What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple, at least for a fellow like me; so simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a cast away do? Why he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”
― Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

“Do you know what he told me after lying under a cliff for thirty six hours with two inches of his femur sticking out? He said: 'Queenie, I think I'm going to pass out and before I do, I'm going to give you a piece of advice' - God, I thought he was going to die and knew and was telling me what to do with his book - and he said quite solemnly: 'Queenie, always stick to Bach and the early Italians' - and passed out cold as a mackerel. And by God, it's not bad advice.”
― Walker Percy

“It was not Gilda and a racquet being used reflexively to some purpose. It was not Gilda using a racquet. It was one thing, maybe you could call it a Gilda-racquet-court-net-game-situation-two-other-players-wind-sunshine object. But there was only one thing there. To seperate us out would be to miss the reality.”
― Steven L. Peck, Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats