Paul's Case Quotes

“He was entirely rid of his nervous misgivings, of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire to show himself different from his surroundings. He felt now that his surroundings explained him.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“He stood watching the approaching locamotive, his teeth chattering, his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When the right moment came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“He burnt like a faggot in a tempest.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he noticed, their red glory all over.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing game in the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which the world is run.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“He lay still, closed his eyes, and let the tide of things wash over him.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“Was he not, after all, one of those fortunate beings born to the purple, was he not still himself and in his own place?”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“The gray monotony stretched before him in hopeless, unrelieved years[.]”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders together in a spasm or realization; the plot of all dramas, the text of all romances, the nerve-stuff of all sensations was whirling about him like the snowflakes.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“The movement the cracked orchestra beat out the overture from Martha, or jerked at the serenade from Rigoletto, all stupid and ugly things slid from him, and his senses were deliciously, yet delicately fired.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“This was Paul's fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“Then, again, suppose a day should come when his father would remember that night, and wish there had been no warning cry to stay his hand?”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“After each of these orgies of living he experienced all the physical depression which follows a debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors; a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of everyday existence; a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case

“There it was, what he wanted- tangibly before him, like the fairy world of a Christmas pantomime, but mocking spirits stood guard at the doors, and, as the rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined always to shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it.”
― Willa Cather, Paul's Case