Revenge of the Lawn Quotes

“Like some kind of strange vacuum cleaner I tried to console him. I recited the same old litanies that you say to people when you try to help their broken hearts, but words can't help at all.

It's just the sound of another human voice that makes the only difference. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to make anybody happy when they're feeling shitty about losing somebody that they love.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“I have emotions

that are like newspapers that

read themselves.

I go for days at a time

trapped in the want ads.

I feel as if I am an ad

for the sale of a haunted house:

18 rooms

$37,000

I'm yours

ghosts and all.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“It's an old song that's been played on all the jukeboxes in America. The song has been around so long that it's been recorded on the very dust of America and it has settled on everything and changed chairs and cars and toys and lamps and windows into billions of phonographs to play that song back into the ear of our broken heart.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“Warm fog swirled in the canyon as we gradually descended. A hundred feet in front of us everything was lost in the fog and a hundred feet behind us everything was lost in the fog. We were walking in a capsule between amnesias.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“   'Satisfied?' she said.
   She's an Aries.
   'Yes,' I said.
   I'm an Aquarius.
   We also had two pumpkins: both Scorpios.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“One day he decided that his liking for poetry could not be fully expressed in just reading poetry or listening to poets reading on phonograph records. He decided to take the plumbing out of his house and completely replace it with poetry, and so he did.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“I sat down and looked the bus over to see who was there, and it took me about a minute to realize that there was something very wrong with that bus, and it took the other people about the same period to realize that there was something very wrong with the bus, and the thing that was wrong was me.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“She opened her purse which was like a small autumn field and near the fallen branches of an old apple tree, she found her keys.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“Jack had some kind of idea that it was all wrong for a car to have a house.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“Whenever I see watercress, which isn't very often, I think of the rich. I think they are the only people who can afford it and they use watercress in exotic recipes that they keep hidden in vaults from the poor.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“They were healthy, normal sex fiends.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“This might have been a funny story if it weren't for the fact that people need a little loving and, God, sometimes it's sad all the shit they have to go through to find some.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“I was a child, then, though now I look like somebody else.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“Her garbage had lied to me.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970

“У нее был девятнадцатилетний пес, которого она глубоко любила, и пес отвечал на эту любовь тем, что очень медленно умирал от старости.
Каждый день мой друг приходил на работу, и пес становился еще чуточку мертвее. Все пристойные сроки смерти для пса уже давно прошли, но пес умирал так долго, что сбился с дороги к смерти.

Увы, отъезд ветеринара не решил основной проблемы пса: он был так стар, что смерть стала образом жизни, и от акта умирания он отбился.
На следующий день пес забрел в угол комнаты и не смог оттуда выйти. Он простоял там много часов, пока не рухнул от изнеможения — по удачному стечению обстоятельств как раз в тот момент, когда в комнату вошла старуха: она искала ключи от своего "роллс-ройса".
Увидев, что пес растекся в углу по полу беспородной лужицей, она расплакалась. Его морда по-прежнему была прижата к стене, а глаза слезились совсем по-человечьи — прожив с людьми слишком долго, собаки перенимают самые худшие их черты.

Почему нас смешало вот так, будто мы всего лишь жуткий салат, поданный на сиденьях проклятого автобуса?

Мы с радиоприемником шли домой по слякотным улицам без тротуаров. Радио лежало в картонной упаковке, и мне доверили его нести. Я так гордился.
То был один из счастливейших вечеров в моей жизни: я слушал любимые передачи по новехонькому радио, а зимний ливень и ураган сотрясали дом. Каждая передача звучала, словно ограненный алмаз. Удары копыт лошади Малыша Сиско сверкали, будто кольцо.
Я сижу сейчас, лысеяжирнеястареягодыспустя, слушаю прямой эфир по второму новенькому радио в своей жизни, а призраки того ливня сотрясают дом.

Никто на неё не смотрел, хотя она готова была развалиться, как свёкла в землетрясение. Им было всё равно.”
― Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970