Fat City Quotes

“He felt the guilt of inaction, of simply waiting while his life went to waste. No one was worth the gift of his life, no one could possibly be worth that. It belonged to him alone, and he did not deserve it either, because he was letting it waste. It was getting away from him and he made no effort to stop it. He did not know how.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“That period had been the peak of his life, though he had not realized it then. It had gone by without time for reflection, ending while he was still thinking things were going to get better.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“Still he was uncertain. He wondered if everything had gone as it should. Was that all there was to it? Perhaps it had been celebrated out of proportion because there was nothing else to live for.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“Boys, men, old toothless women had run along beside the car when the train was again in motion, calling, offering bananas, guavas, mangoes, paper cones of flavored ice, Jello shimmering on the palm of a hand, lifting something up to him and fumbling his money, running faster to give him his change, or slower, grinning, shrugging, as the train pulled away. Somewhere he had bought half a roasted cow's head and eaten it held by the horn with a newspaper on his lap. What had caused the diarrhea he did not know.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“At times as he lay in bed listening to her breathing, a fear came over him that after marriage death was the next major event.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“Hoping never done nothing. It wanting that do it. You got to want to win so bad you can taste it. If you want to win bad enough you win.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“All I need's a fight and a woman. Then I'm set. I get the fight I'll get the money. I get the money I'll get the woman. There's some women that love you for yourself, but that don't last long.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“The sky darkened, the liquid singing of the blackbirds diminished and ceased, mud hens swam back to shore, climbed up the banks and huddled in the willows. The lights of a farm came on in the brown distance where patches of tule fog lay on the barren muddy fields. A wind came with the darkness, rattling the license plate, and a low, honking flight of geese passed.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“He could not bear the thought of training, not only because of the effort he could never summon from himself now, but also because the idea of fighting was disorienting in its repugnance. He felt that everyone at the Lido Gym was insane. One”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“At times it was impossible for him to control the praise and predictions that issued from him like thanks, and he was aware of exaggerating; yet he felt a boxer needed someone who believed in him, and if it were true that confidence could win fights, then he could not be sure his overestimates were really that at all. Guiding”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“The white race is in its decline. We started downhill in 1492 when Columbus discovered syphilis.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“Out in the fog, weary, yet buoyant from the drinks, his mind dulled along with his aches and his energy returning, Tully was free of the sense of impending ordeal that had been with him for weeks. He felt whole, self-sufficient, felt his life had at last opened up and that now nothing stood between him and the future's infinite possibilities.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“Limited no longer by his own capacities, he had an odds advantage that he had never had as a competitor. He knew he could last. But his fighters were less dependable. Some trained one day and laid off two, fought once and quit, lost their timing, came back, struggled into condition, gasped and missed and were beaten, or won several bouts and got married, or moved, or were drafted, joined the navy or went to jail, were bleeders, suffered headaches, saw double or broke their hands.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“He lived in the Hotel Coma--named perhaps for some founder of the town, some California explorer or pioneer, or for some long-deceased Italian immigrant who founded only the hotel itself. Whoever it commemorated, the hotel was a poor monument, and Billy Tully had no intention of staying on.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“Days were like long twilights in the house under the black walnut trees; through untrimmed shrubs screening the windows the sun scarcely shone. It was a low, white frame house with a sagging porch roof supported by two chains that through years of stress had cracked the overhang of the main roof where they were attached, pulling it downward at so noticeable an angle that everything—overhang, chains, porch roof—appeared checked from collapsing by nothing more than the tar paper over the cracked boards.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City

“Profoundly moved, he kissed the lax waiting mouth with exquisite unhappiness.”
― Leonard Gardner, Fat City