Eustace Chisholm and the Works Quotes

“Some people confess in the flesh, others on paper.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“It was paper, as he had once joked to Amos, that he was really queer for.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“Amos, talk about pearls for teeth ... you got ‘em. No wonder the boys go for you, because I could too and if I had something to push between those pearly teeth I’d be first in line.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“Mexican marijuana, which he called the schoolboy’s consolation.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“She made no point of concealing the truth, for the truth was all she could bear now.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“One fine day you’ve got to give your body to somebody, or turn into a fully-fledged zombie.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“Why, if Daniel Haws was to take out his naked cock and shake it in your face, you’d die of apoplexy.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“Maureen had been born with the face of a gargoyle on the body of a sylph.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“There was the cruel kind of Eustace silence.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“Most people have their buttons,” Eustace continued.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“Ace sat down and inflated his cheeks like the wind gods in Italian paintings.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“Carla had the American woman’s fixed idea that love can cure, love can heal, love can bind a flowing wound.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works

“One morning while drinking coffee with Amos, Daniel Haws looked up suddenly, as if feeling the boy’s eyes on him, and said:
“Tryin’ to burn holes starin’ like that?”
“Guess I was just resting my eyes on you so as not to look at your wallpaper,” Amos gave a sour apology.
Daniel closed the book he was reading, a volume of Rhodes’s history of the United States, and took a careful look at the kitchen wallpaper.
“Yes,” he admitted, “that wallpaper is goddam ancient.”
― James Purdy, Eustace Chisholm and the Works