13 Quotes by David Goodis

It was very fast, that first time. They were on the couch, and then they were off the couch and it was all over. It was like jumping out the window and landing on the street. A quick ride, just like that.

Winter was gray and mean upon the city and every night was a package of cold bleak hours, like the hours in a cell that had no door.

Under the blanket the outline of her body was slender and displayed a certain innocence, a precious quality far more significant than the elegance of her form. She seemed to radiate kindness and essential goodness, and Darby, trying to measure the value of her, told himself it was immeasurable.

A cat came out of an alley, took a look at all the snow, and went back in. Farther on up the street a fat man, aproned and puffing, emerged from a restaurant and whiffed the cold air and gazed yearningly at the sky. As though even the dreams were up there, much too far away.

He told himself she wasn’t really such a bad person, she was just a pest, she was sticky, there was something misplaced in her make-up, something that kept her from fading clear of people when they wanted to be in the clear.

At three in the morning it was dead around here and the windows of the mansion were black, the mansion dark purple and solemn against the moonlit velvet, green of gently sloping lawn.

The trouble with people is they don’t understand people.

I think the way to stop it is to shrug it off. Or take it with your tongue in your cheek. Sure, that’s the system. At any rate, it’s the system that works for you. It’s the automatic control board that keeps you out there where nothing matters, where it’s only you and the keyboard and nothing else. Because it’s gotta be that way. You gotta stay clear of anything serious.

What it amounts to, is you’ve been listed minus zero, strictly useless, absolutely worthless. The tip off came when he didn’t even bother to have you thrown out. I guess that puts you right at the bottom, even lower than Carp and the other mischief-makers. At least they get some attention, they rate high enough to get bounced. All you’re getting is the look; the look that says in no uncertain terms that you’ve been junked.