From Time to Time

Quotes

1. Once in a while you’re momentarily conscious of being happy. But I’m superstitious, and I picture Fate—best be respectful, and use a capital F—as a misty presence somewhere up in the sky but not too far away. Always listening, alert and ready to punish forbidden optimism.

   p. 38

2. 

   “They couldn’t promise that, could they?”

   “Of course not. Congress would have to declare war; this was back in the old-fashioned days when Presidents felt they had to honor their oath to abide by the Constitution.”

   p. 112

3. 

   The best thing in our show was always our move to the next town.

   p. 233

4. 

   I had the evening to kill, but it didn’t want to die and fought back.

   p. 212

5. 

   When you’ve heard one bagpipe tune you’ve heard them both.

   p. 285

6. 

   “Spare me the nostalgia.”

   “I hate that word. You know who uses it mostly? Time patriots. Same people who live in the best country in the world. Must be the best because that’s where they live. And they live in the best of times; has to be best because it’s their lifetime. You even suggest there just might have been better times than here and now, and it’s ‘nostalgia, nostalgia.’ Don’t even know what the word means. Means overly sentimental, for crysakes.”

   p. 58

7. 

   “You’re smart, though.”

   “Well, yes, though I wouldn’t call for a new deal if I were dumb. Because it wouldn’t matter; I’d go along just about the way I do anyway. I’m a simple man, I like the simple life, so there’s no real need to be smart. Kind of a waste, actually. I have to be smart enough to stay simple and not get all dissatisfied. The way I’d be anyway if I were dumb. You follow me?”

   “I’m not sure. Maybe I’m not smart enough.”

   p. 55

That’s all the quotes.

7 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more