David Markson Quotes & Sayings

He had a face roughly the shape and color of a clumsily peeled Idaho potato, and he had a jaw like the end of a cigarette carton. — David Markson

If one wishes to see a cat badly enough, one will doubtless see one. — David Markson

In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in. — David Markson

An information bureau of the human condition, Theodor Adorno called Kafka. — David Markson

Is T.S. Eliot the only poet one can think of who could have spent a year on his own in Paris at twenty-three - and managed to have no sexual encounter whatsoever? — David Markson

Can Protagonist think of a single film that interests him as much as the three-hundredth best book he ever read? — David Markson

The morning's recollection of the emptiness of the day before. Its anticipation of the emptiness of the day to come. — David Markson

Once, I had a dream of fame. Generally, even then, I was lonely. — David Markson

How miraculous it was, noted Diogenes, that whenever one felt that sort of urge, one could readily masturbate. But conversely how disheartening that one could not simply rub one's stomach when hungry. — David Markson

How can I tell what I think until I see what I say? — David Markson

I like Mr. Dickens' books much better than yours, Papa. Said one of Thackeray's daughters. — David Markson

Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm. One's language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered. — David Markson

A simple creature unlettyrde. Julian of Norwich called herself.
The most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress. Echoed Jane Austen - four hundred years afterward. — David Markson

If forced to choose, Giacometti once said, he would rescue a cat from a burning building before a Rembrandt. — David Markson

Although one curious thing that might sooner or later cross the woman's mind would be that she had paradoxically been practically as alone before all of this had happened as she was now, incidentally. Well, this being an autobiographical novel I can categorically verify that such a thing would sooner or later cross her mind, in fact. One manner of being alone simply being different from another manner of being alone, being all that she would finally decide that this came down to, as well. Which is to say that even when one's telephone still does function one can be as alone as when it does not. — David Markson

Unquestionably it would have been Mary Magdalene who did the dishes at the Last Supper.
Concluded Marguerite Yourcenar. — David Markson

In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. — David Markson

One never does solve what it is about watching fires, really. — David Markson

Oedipus gouges out his eyes, Jocasta hangs herself, both guiltless; the play has come to a harmonious conclusion. Wrote Schiller. — David Markson

I also believe I met William Gaddis once. He did not look Italian. — David Markson

Or was it possibly...nothing more than a read? — David Markson

Tolstoy's wife copied out the entire manuscript of War and Peace in longhand seven times. — David Markson

Was it John Searle who called Jacques Derrida the sort of philosopher who gives bullshit a bad name? — David Markson

Petrarch sometimes wrote letters to long-dead authors. He was also a dedicated hunter of classic manuscripts. Once, after discovering some previously unknown works of Cicero, he wrote Cicero the news. — David Markson

You can learn more by going to the opera than you ever can by reading Emerson. Like that there are two sexes. — David Markson

Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano.
What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again. — David Markson

Was it Brigid Brophy who gave up on a certain Virginia Woolf novel when she discovered that Woolf believed one needed a corkscrew to open a bottle of champagne? — David Markson

Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects. — David Markson

Tennessee Williams choked to death on the plastic cap of a nasal spray. — David Markson

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. — David Markson

Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover ... or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide? — David Markson

Still, how I nearly felt. In the midst of all that looking. — David Markson

I still notice the burned house, mornings, when I walk along the beach. Well, obviously I do not notice the house. What I notice is what remains of the house. One is still prone to think of a house as a house, however, even if there is not remarkably much left of it. — David Markson

Trying to imagine E. M. Forster, who found Ulysses indecorous, at a London performance of Lenny Bruce - to which in fact he was once taken.
Trying to imagine the same for a time-transported Nathaniel Hawthorne - who during his first visit to Europe was even shocked by the profusion of naked statues. — David Markson

On the other hand it is probably safe to assume that Rembrandt and Spinoza surely would have at least passed on the street, now and again.
Or even run into each other quite frequently, if only at some neighborhood shop or other.
And certainly they would have exchanged amenities as well, after a time.
Good morning, Rembrandt. Good morning to you, Spinoza.
I was extremely sorry to hear about your bankruptcy, Rembrandt. I was extremely sorry to hear about your excommunication, Spinoza.
Do have a good day, Rembrandt. Do have the same, Spinoza.
All of this would have been said in Dutch, incidentally.
I mention that simply because it is known that Rembrandt did not speak any other language except Dutch.
Even if Spinoza may have preferred Latin. Or Jewish. — David Markson

What do any of us ever truly know? — David Markson

You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michaelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad. — David Markson

Have I ever said that Turner once actually had himself lashed to the mast of a ship, to be able to later do a painting of a storm?
Which has never failed to remind me of the scene in which Odysseus does the identical thing, of course, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put. — David Markson