Carter Beats the Devil Quotes

“There were never moments in your life when you actually saw something end, for whether you knew it or not something else was always flowering. Never a disappearance, always a transformation.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“Faith was a choice. So, it followed, was wonder.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“His curse in life was to be attracted to people who understood him.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. —ALBERT EINSTEIN”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“Each piece of the set was on a winch and pulley, bag-dropped, counterbalanced by nests of fifty-pound bags of sand. The setup was called a "Fairbanks," for the reason that when a stagehand so wanted, he could stand upon a knot on the rope, untie as few or as many bags of sand as he wanted, and ride nearly to the rafters like Zorro as the scenery lowered.

There was no particular reason to ride that way, but because Carter allowed it, the team of men did so all night long, trading places at the top, jumping onto the ropes and riding back down later. With the mighty Egyptian set descending in its many pieces, the audience was deprived of a behind-the-scenes tableau of beauty: Carter's team swiftly riding ropes up to the catwalk and down to the stage again, simply because they could.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“He thought of the boys and girls who looked for sweethearts at Mountain View Cemetery, and chorus girls who met their beaux behind scrim, and office romances that flourished in the buildings on Market Street, and he felt like there were little lights in alcoves here and there across the city, in cozy dens, in doorways during rainstorms, or even a chilly balcony on the Ferry building. Everywhere, little pairs of glowing lights. When you walked a city, wherever you looked, someone had probably fallen in love.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“He wanted to go home, to sleep. It would feel much better to give up, give in. Then he remembered faintly that this was exactly the Devil's advice. What if all this sweet winding down was the way the Devil buried wonder? Wonder was life.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“You know what the hardest thing is?" Phoebe said, as the first pair of fireworks went up. "The hardest thing is to know everything you know so far and still have faith.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“Man cannot survive by bread and water alone, but bread and water and hate?”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“Life is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“She knew him. Somehow. And wasn't that quite marvelous?”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“It was a motorcycle. Black, angular, and sleek, unmistakably European, it was the most beautiful object Carter had ever seen. He wanted it. He would fight anyone who tried to take it away from him. How soon could he ride it?”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“All over Bernie Simon's features, lights were dimming and doors politely closing.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“Because she was still glaring at Carter as the pain took hold of her, he saw something few people get to witness: experience invading the gaze of an innocent.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“Parts of him were built to be awake before dawn and yearning to be both absolutely still and moving everywhere at once.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“It's a disgusting habit, and it causes weak men to make strong excuses.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“There was some nobility in being poor, but absolutely none in being poor because you were an idiot.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“Everyone wants a long journey, kid. That's all. Next!”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“In the middle of the night, with his father and brother asleep, and his mother having an adventure, he felt fits of longing for places he'd never been, places he couldn't describe, and he wondered if there were anyone else like him in the world, awake and catching glimpses of the unknown. He wondered if he were truly related to his family, or if instead he had dropped among them, a changeling.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil

“[O]ne should always treat one's animals well. All else will follow.”
― Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil