Mickelsson's Ghosts Quotes

“He could forget all these people, just like that, become fond again of strangers and leave them too.”
― John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts

“Mickelsson looked at her, surprised to discover that she was stupid.”
― John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts

“Lifting a sabre-saw, feeling the heft of it, Mickelsson recognized his hand as his father's hand. They were the same size and shape and had much the same freckled redness; the only real difference was that his father's hand had always been barked, scabbed, cracked, and calloused, always at least one fingernail discolored by some mishap. He remembered a chest his uncle and father had let him help them make when he was seven or so, a pine chest longer and deeper than a coffin, no nails or screws, just wooden pegs, locust. It had served as a windowseat through most of his childhood; later they'd used it to hold cow-feed. In the bright, pleasant-smelling hardware store, the discovery that his father and uncle, all those years, had been playing, enjoying themselves—making art, in a way—came over Mickelsson like an awakening. He felt an extravagant inclination to pity himself. What foolishness his life was, in comparison to theirs! But the likeness of his hand to his father's hand distracted him, made him feel, almost unwillingly, a surge of joy.”
― John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts

“PHILOSOPHER CLAIMS DIRECT ENCOUNTER WITH BEING!”
― John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts

“As usual, he’d fooled only the smart ones.”
― John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts

“Heidegger’s parlamblings on ‘Nothing’ and ‘Not’ and ‘the Nothing that Nothings’ were the last supposedly respectable gasp of classical philosophy.”
― John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts

“He was saner than anyone --had fallen out of the world of illusion: love, interesting work, hope for the future.”
― John Gardner, Mickelsson's Ghosts