he Quotes

“At the Oceana Apartments, he recollects leaving England in triumph, infused with a joy he has not felt in many years. England has reinvigorated them. England has given them hope.

But hope is a candle.

Hope burns, and then it is gone.”
― John Connolly, he

“Death does not come quickly for Babe. Death pilfers Babe piece by piece, pound by pound.

But not before Babe conspires with Death in his own dissolution.

Babe opens the door, and Death steps through.”
― John Connolly, he

“On the night of August 6th, 1957, Babe endures stroke after stroke, and his body is contorted by spasms. Lucille climbs into bed beside her husband, and cradles him in her arms, this child of a man, the frailty of him, heedless of the stink of mortality as she buries her face in his scalp and his skin, knowing only that this is his essence, the best of him in noble rot, and each aspect particulate is to her a transference, and she does not relinquish her hold until Babe dies the next morning, and she feels his passing as an exhalation, an exclamation, as though Babe, in his agonies, has at last comprehended a matter elusive but long guessed.”
― John Connolly, he

“But I’d be poorer. You’d prefer to see me out on the street? Don’t be so selfish. If you hadn’t spent all your money on lawyers and alimony, you’d have found another way to rid yourself of it. And it’s only money. You never own money. You hold on to it for a time, you die, it goes to someone else. You give it to someone else, you get something in return, you die. Those are the two options. Where is this coming from, anyway? You have regrets now? You’re too old to have regrets.”
― John Connolly, he

“His old identity has been discarded, and his new identity is to be found only on the screen. In the expanse between these two poles lies the reality of the self.”
― John Connolly, he

“Hal Roach is also conflicted. The short pictures work. They make money, although the market has calmed and the exhibitors no longer invite Hal Roach to name his price. Features will make more money, but features require a plot. Not everyone on Hal Roach’s lot understands plot. The first that most of the gagmen will know of a plot is when they’re buried in one. But the three-reel pictures are also unsatisfactory: too long for the gag structure, too short to allow dialogue to develop enough to help with the lifting. So, whether they wish it or not, Hal Roach’s two biggest stars will have to extend themselves. Hal Roach will talk with them, just as soon as they have finished writing the action script for their next picture, a murder spoof.”
― John Connolly, he

“Chaplin reads dictionaries while shaving. Chaplin has sex with fifteen-year-old girls. Chaplin rehearses scenes fifty times. Chaplin takes Paulette Goddard to bed, believing her to be only seventeen, and is disappointed when she reveals that she is twenty-two. Chaplin has the strings of a violin reversed so Chaplin can play it left-handed. Chaplin watches him practice and rehearse in their shared rooms, then steals his gags. Chaplin carries a gun, and patrols the grounds of his home hunting for men who might seek to sleep with his child bride. Chaplin promises him work, and reneges on that promise. Chaplin’s hair turns white in the 1920s. Chaplin bears the name of a man who was not his father. Chaplin’s mother is a prostitute. Chaplin endures squalor and deprivation. Chaplin is abandoned. Chaplin is an exile. Chaplin marries a woman thirty-six years his junior. Chaplin is the greatest comedian he has ever seen, and the greatest he will ever see. Chaplin is a monster.”
― John Connolly, he

“The answer is that there is no plot: plots are for the stage alone. There is no plan, no manifest destiny. There is only a series of events, some connected, some discrete, and this will be called a life.”
― John Connolly, he

“Oliver Hardy died in the year of Babe’s birth, so Babe never knew him, but every man lives his life touched by intimations of his father, and none more so than Babe, because in form and demeanor Babe is his father’s son. He has been shown by Babe the photograph of the patriarch, is aware of the resemblance. He has read the treasured cutting from the Columbia paper describing Babe’s father: ‘open, jolly, funful … covered all over with smiles … lives to eat, or eats to live … this Falstaffian figure.”
― John Connolly, he

“He is not bitter. Never that. Babe would have said it was not worth becoming bitter, and Babe would have been right. But he is sad, sad that they do not care as much as he does.”
― John Connolly, He

“Sometimes he imagines himself peeling away Babe’s integuments, excavating the seams, so that Babe becomes thinner and thinner, smaller and smaller, until at last all that remains is the shining core of the man, the radiance within. But Babe is immune from such exploration, and when disease finally pares away the layers of Babe, all that is left is death.”
― John Connolly, He

“—My pal is dead.”
― John Connolly, He

“When she’s drinking, it’s bad, but when she’s not drinking, well, it’s like living with a bomb in the house. The bomb is ticking, and you know it’s going to explode, so you just spend your days waiting for the bang. And when it happens, you’re almost relieved.”
― John Connolly, He

“He believes it might have been Mark Twain who said that history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
― John Connolly, He

“—Life will stop, but time will go on.”
― John Connolly, He

“He has never been shouted at so quietly.”
― John Connolly, He

“It is like exchanging butterflies for moths.”
― John Connolly, He

“And the ignorant, as always, will be wrong.”
― John Connolly, He

“There is no genius. There is only the work. There is no art. There is only the craft.”
― John Connolly, He

“All is pretense, but we must be careful what we pretend to be, because that is what we must become.”
― John Connolly, He

“Babe desires only to be employed.”
― John Connolly, He

“gags old before they were told,”
― John Connolly, He

“drinking whisky in kitchens by candlelight, drinking with men who have failed and men who have yet to fail. He wishes”
― John Connolly, He

“The mind is a theater. It cannot be allowed to go dark. It must be maintained.”
― john connolly, he