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“Perhaps I could have saved him, with only a word, two words out of my mouth. Perhaps I could have saved us all. But I never spoke them.
Strange it is that one could run crying to the house of a man that one loved, to save him from danger, and that he could say to one, have I not told you not to come to this house? And strange it is that one should withdraw silent and shamed.
For he spoke hard and bitter words to me, and shut the door of his soul on me, and I withdrew. But I should have hammered on it,I should have broken it down with my naked hands,I should have cried out there not ceasing, for behind it was a man in danger, the bravest and gentlest of them all. So I who came to save was made a supplicant; and because of the power he had over me, I held, in the strange words of the English, I held my peace.”
― Too Late the Phalarope
Strange it is that one could run crying to the house of a man that one loved, to save him from danger, and that he could say to one, have I not told you not to come to this house? And strange it is that one should withdraw silent and shamed.
For he spoke hard and bitter words to me, and shut the door of his soul on me, and I withdrew. But I should have hammered on it,I should have broken it down with my naked hands,I should have cried out there not ceasing, for behind it was a man in danger, the bravest and gentlest of them all. So I who came to save was made a supplicant; and because of the power he had over me, I held, in the strange words of the English, I held my peace.”
― Too Late the Phalarope
“But some of the machinery would be left, since new pieces could always be bought on the instalment plan - gaunt, staring motionless wheels rising from the mounds of brick rubble and ragged weeds with a quality profoundly astonishing, and gutted boilers lifting their rusting and unsmoking stacks with an air stubborn, baffled and bemused upon a stumppocked scene of profound and peaceful desolation, unplowed, untilled, gutting slowly into red and choked ravines beneath the long quiet rains of autumn and the galloping fury of vernal equinoxes.”
― Light in August
― Light in August
“I said You don't know what worry is. I don't know what it is. I don't know whether I am worrying or not. Whether I can or not . I don't know whether I can cry or not. I don't know whether I have tried to or not. I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.”
― As I Lay Dying
― As I Lay Dying
“And where are the windows? Where does the light come in?
Bernie, old friend, forgive me, but I haven't got the answer to that one. I'm not even sure if there are any windows in this particular house. Maybe the light is just going to have to come in as best it can, through whatever chinks and cracks have been left in the builder's faulty craftsmanship, and if that's the case you can be sure that nobody feels worse about it than I do. God knows, Bernie; God knows there certainly ought to be a window around here somewhere, for all of us.”
― Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
Bernie, old friend, forgive me, but I haven't got the answer to that one. I'm not even sure if there are any windows in this particular house. Maybe the light is just going to have to come in as best it can, through whatever chinks and cracks have been left in the builder's faulty craftsmanship, and if that's the case you can be sure that nobody feels worse about it than I do. God knows, Bernie; God knows there certainly ought to be a window around here somewhere, for all of us.”
― Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.…
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket… booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that…
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.…
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
― Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket… booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that…
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.…
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
― Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Christopher’s 2025 Year in Books
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