The Old Man and Me Quotes

“I had nothing better to do, had I, except recount my money and repaint my finger-nails and die of frustration?”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“Thanks for the hint," I laughed. "And thanks for the invitation too. Only I don't know if I can make it - " I stalled automatically, marveling at the strength of my reflex - the never-appear-too-eager one, for of course nothing would have stopped me.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“The shabbier the snobbier.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“Besides, I hated him but I loved him too. Yes. I know all about that sort of thing. Christ, I should, I'd heard nothing else my last two years in New York. 'They have this terrific love-hate thing going,' everybody said about everybody else. 'You watch, it's going to destroy them-.' But never about me. When I took to someone I took to them, and when I took against them ditto. Mostly I felt indifference.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“What did I feel? Appalled. Astonished. Bewildered. I thought I was doing so well. I thought I was charming the hell out of him. I thought I had him eating out of my hand. Well: I thought I was getting away with it. I might have known. There is always a catch. But suddenly I felt very very young, like a child. Suddenly I wanted to run to - God knows whom, maybe God Himself - why is there never a face I can put to whom I want to run? - and cry, 'But I thought he liked me. All I want is to be liked.' And then, thank heaven, cold rage and fury.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“Bollie was a sort of chain-talker, lighting one end of a conversation to another without letting the first go out.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“She stared at the goldfish bowl uncertainly. “I can never remember whether I’ve fed him or not,” she said suddenly. “I kept on feeding them and they kept on dying all the time. All but one. So I don’t know if he killed the rest or if I was over-feeding them or starving them or what. You’re supposed to give them a pinch of food every day. But how big is a pinch anyway?”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“These waiters were hand-picked for pleurisy, deafness, and a variety of speech defects. They were flushed of skin, gnarled of hand. The dishes that jumped on to the floor from their palsied hands were never referred to again, as it were, but just lay there for the rest of the evening to be ground under foot by passers-by.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“He looked so—what was it that gave him his irresistible charm? He looked so accessible. That was it. A great simple truth struck me with surprise: charm is availability.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“You're not playing the game," he said grimly. "English gossip isn't supposed to get back to the person it's about.”
― elaine dundy, The Old Man and Me

“Fate was playing my hand for me and for once in my life I knew better than not to go ahead and let it.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“She must be the apple of her father’s eye for she was a plain girl with nothing in her face or figure to indicate she would not remain so. As for rebellion I couldn’t detect the slightest twitch of it in her.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“It seems to me they're not really happy unless they're at the same time on public display and at their worst.”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me

“He hated so many people I hardly know anyone any more”
― Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me