Dreams from Bunker Hill Quotes

“Please God, please Knut Hamsun, don't desert me now. I started to write and I wrote:

The time has come," the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“I went to the library. I looked at the magazines, at the pictures in them. One day I went to the bookshelves, and pulled out a book. It was Winesburg, Ohio.. I sat at a long mahogany table and began to read. All at once my world turned over. The sky fell in. The book held me. The tears came. My heart beat fast. I read until my eyes burned. I took the book home. I read another Anderson. I read and I read, and I was heartsick and lonely and in love with a book, many books, until it came naturally, and I sat there with a pencil and a long tablet, and tried to write, until I felt I could not go on because the words would not come as they did in Anderson, they only came like drops of blood from my heart.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“The bartender put a notepad and a pencil before me. Breathing hard, the pencil trembling, I wrote:
Dear Sinclair Lewis:
You were once a god, but now you are a swine. I once reverenced you, admired you, and now you are nothing. I came to shake your hand in adoration, you, Lewis, a giant among American writers, and you rejected it. I swear I shall never read another line of yours again. You are an ill-mannered boor. You have betrayed me. I shall tell H. L. Muller about you, and how you have shamed me. I shall tell the world.
Arturo Bandini
P.S. I hope you choke on your steak.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“I stretched out on the bed and slept. It was twilight when I awakened and turned on the light. I felt better, no longer tired. I went to the typewriter and sat before it. My thought was to write a sentence, a single perfect sentence. If I could write one good sentence I could write two and if I could write two I could write three, and if I could write three I could write forever. But suppose I failed? Suppose I had lost all of my beautiful talent? Suppose it had burned up in the fire of Biff Newhouse smashing my nose or Helen Brownell dead forever? What would happen to me? Would I go to Abe Marx and become a busboy again? I had seventeen dollars in my wallet. Seventeen dollars and the fear of writing. I sat erect before the typewriter and blew on my fingers. Please God, please Knut Hamsun, don’t desert me now. I started to write and I wrote:
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—”
I looked at it and wet my lips. It wasn’t mine, but what the hell, a man had to start someplace.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“Elle me lança le gant au visage. "Gibier de potence !" dit elle. "Petit malfrat !"
Elle fit demi-tour et m'abandonna à mon sort. Je me séchai, enfilai un caleçon et entrai dans la cuisine. Elle était devant la cuisinière, le dos tourné, en train de préparer mon petit-déjeuner. L'expert des appendices charnus que je suis détecta aussitôt la contraction de ses fessiers - signe indubitable de fureur chez une femme. L'expérience m'a appris à me montrer extrêmement prudent en présence d'une métamorphose aussi spectaculaire des fessiers féminins, si bien que je m'assis sans moufter. J'avais l'impression d'affronter un serpent lové sur lui-même.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“Patience! It was the least of my virtues.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“The overcoat felt warm from the heat of his body. It was all of a piece, a part of my life, like an old chair, or a worn fork, or my mother’s shawl, the things of my life, the precious worthless treasured things.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“I had thought of many things since knowing her, but never her death. For all her years, she nourished a love in me. Now it was gone. Now that she was dead I could think of her no longer. I had sobbed and whimpered and wept until it was all gone, all of it, and as always I found myself alone in the world.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“I went to the library and found again the books that had changed my life: Sherwood Anderson, Jack London, Knut Hamsun, Dostoevsky, D’Annunzio, Pirandello, Flaubert, de Maupassant. The welcome they gave me was much warmer than the cold curiosity of old friends I met in the town.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“Why was I here? What now? Who did I know? Not even myself.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“All at once the self pity drained from me. There was life still, there was a typewriter and paper and eyes to see them, and thoughts to keep them alive.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“كانت تحدث لي أمور غامضة مشوشة. خرجت من العالم والآن كان من الصعب عليَّ أن أجد طريق العودة”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill

“Nella chiara mattina domenicale camminavo lungo Olive Street. La città sembrava deserta, la strada era tranquilla. Mi fermai ad ascoltare. Sentivo qualcosa. Era il suono della felicità. Era il mio cuore che batteva dolcemente, ritmicamente. Un orologio, ecco cosa era, un piccolo congegno della felicità.”
― John Fante, Dreams from Bunker Hill