J. P. Donleavy Quotes

Morning wiping sleepy dust from eyes, Balthazar asked nannie why does everyone cry. Because your father has gone away. Where. To where people go. Where do they go. They pass away. Where. To be with God. Why. Because they are dead. What is dead. Dead is when your heart grows cold. Will my heart ever grow cold. Yes God love you little boy.

I, George Smith, hereby make known my last will and testicle. First off I should like to rear up and haunt all those who tried to screw me up while living. Special attention to be given those fuck pigs who have communicated with me by letter attempting thereby to get funds from my unrelenting clutches.

How small we make our worlds. Gather them in, tighten them up into little castles of fear.

The one who leads the hunt gets no splatter.

Hearts clicking. Remember that. Just so many times and click, we go away in this roofless world.

Ahead two distant houses. Facing each other across the road. Pass between them in a crossfire of eyes.

Mr Dangerfield, why don't you believe in hell and things like that?
"Hell is for poor people."

I swim back to the shores of privilege out of the sea of the dispossessed.

It would seem in life when all is said and done that it is unwise to speak to anyone if it can be avoided.

All I know is if there's no heaven there's sure enough been plenty of hell. They preach to you that God is good and generous. I think he must be a scoundrel. [...] Not a soul here you can trust. From the moment they lay eyes on you their little brains are scheming how to get the better of you. A back turned is a back stabbed.

What are you going to do in London?
"Rest from the eyes. Ever notice the eyes along the street. Ever notice them? Looking for something. And in this fine cultured city it's me."

Of the eighty thousand things that came all at once into my mind to say, I selected the one hundred and twelfth.

"Percival, you seem to have confidence in the future."
"Ah now without the present you wouldn't have a future. And sure the present is busy making the past while the future is waiting. And there's no harm keeping the future waiting while it's not here yet. And when you get there what is it but you're in the present all over again."
Staring out the tiny window of the turret. Things not so bad. When you think. There's no harm keeping the future waiting.

In a big bowl full of hatred can you ever find a spoonful of love.

Ah Master Reginald, you've learned your first lesson in life. Unless you were better off where you've been, you're always better off where you are. But no matter where you've been or where you are you'll never know if you'll be better off where you're going.