Let It Come Down Quotes

“Once you accept the fact that life isn't fun, you'll be much happier," his mother said to him.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“That was what he wanted, to be baked dry and hard, to feel the vaporous worries evaporating one by one, to know finally that all the damp little doubts and hesitations that covered the floor of his being were curling up and expiring in the great furnace-blast of the sun.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“It's a madhouse, of course. A complete, utter madhouse. I only hope to God it remains one.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“He still felt coreless - he was no one, and he was standing here in the middle of no country. The place was counterfeit, a waiting room between connections, a transition from one way of being to another, which for the moment was neither way, no way.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“In reality the gatherings were held in order to entertain these few Moslem guests, to whom the unaccountable behavior of Europeans never ceased to be a fascinating spectacle. Most of the Europeans, of course, thought the Moslem gentlemen were invited to add local color.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“Tangier is more New York than New York. ... Then you must see how alike the two places are. The life revolves wholly about the making of money. Practically everyone is dishonest. In New York you have Wall Street, here you have the Bourse. ... In New York you have the slick financiers, here the money changers. In New York you have your racketeers. Here you have your smugglers. And you have every nationality and no civic pride.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“The Americans are the nature of the future," she would announce in her hearty voice. "Here's to 'em. God bless their gadgets, great and small, God bless Frigidaire, Tampax and Coca-Cola. Yes, even Coca-Cola,darling." (It was generally conceded that Coca-Cola's advertising was ruining the picturesqueness of Morocco.)”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“You want us all to be snake-charmers and scorpion-eaters," he raged, at one point in their conversation ...
"Naturally," Eunice replied in her most provoking manner. "It would be far preferable to being a nation of tenth-rate pseudo-civilized rug-sellers.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“It was one of the charms of the International Zone that you could get anything you wanted if you paid for it. Do anything, too, for that matter; - there were no incorruptibles. It was only a question of price.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“You know, everyone here's got some little peccadillo he's hoping to hide.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“The Hindus are busy letting themselves be seen riding in Cadillacs instead of smearing themselves with sandalwood paste and bowing in front of Ganpati. The Moslems would rather miss evening prayer than the new Disney movie. The Buddhists think it's more important to take over in the name of Stalin and Progress than to meditate on the four basic sorrows. And we don't even have to mention Christianity or Judaism.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“Tangier is a one-horse town that happens to have its own government.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“The rest of the world was there for her to take at any moment she wished it, but she always rejected it in favour of her own familiar little cosmos.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“Since Thami had the Arab's utter incomprehension of the meaning of pornography, he imagined that the police had placed the ban on obscene films because these infringed upon Christian doctrine at certain specific points, in which case any Christian might be expected to show interest, if only to disapprove.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“What a wonderful thing to be an American!" he said impetuously.
"Yes," said Dyar automatically, never having given much thought to what it would be like not to be an American. It seemed somehow the natural thing to be.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“Still, he could not think of the mass of Moroccans without contempt. He had no patience with their ignorance and backwardness; if he damned the Europeans with one breath, he was bound to damn the Moroccans with the next. No one escaped but him, and that was because he hated himself most of all.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down

“Outside the wind blew by; in here there was nothing but the beating of the hot sun on the skin. He lay a while, intensely conscious of the welcome heat, in a state of self-induced voluptuousness. When he looked at the sun, his eyes closed almost tight, he saw webs of crystalline fire crawling across the narrow space between the slitted lids, and his eyelashes made the furry beams of light stretch out, recede, stretch out. It was a long time since he had lain naked in the sun. He remembered that if you stayed out long enough the rays drew every thought out of your head. That was what he wanted, to be baked dry and hard, to feel the vaporous worries evaporating one by one, to know finally that all the damp little doubts and hesitations that covered the floor of his being were curling up and expiring in the great furnace-blast of the sun.”
― Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down