28 Quotes by Stanley Elkin

The peculiar dignity of men seen eating alone in restaurants on national holidays.

I say “every so often” but it’s more frequent than that.

But it’s hard to talk about art. Maybe there should be a law against it, some First Amendment gag order like crying fire in a crowded theater.

It’s fine, precise, detailed work, the infinitely small motor management of diamond cutters and safecrackers that we do in our heads.

I do not do schtick. What I do are organized routines and connected schtick – schtick upon schtick upon schtick until we have a piece of carpentry.

It’s like everything else. The price of Torahs is higher in Alaska.

Even the sky a hybrid – here clean and black and starred, there roiling with a brusque signature of cloud or piled in strata like folded linen or the interior of rock.

Not just the celibacy thing but because he has God’s ear, a line on the mysteries. That’s impressive to girls.

Like most people of my generation, I fell in love with the philosophy of existentialism.