John Russell > Quotes

“He was not smiling. But neither was his look menacing. His close-cropped white hair gave him an almost regal appearance as he stared at me with a benign, slightly bemused expression as if he were intrigued by this strange white child who was howling like a banshee.
By now I was sitting straight up in bed, the tears streaming copiously down my face, and as I screamed again he began to disappear. Starting with his feet he began to vanish a bit at a time: his lower legs disappeared, and then his thighs, and then his arms and torso until all that was left of him was his handsome face, that face now floating in the air without a body to sustain it, and his face was still wearing that benign, slightly bemused expression until, at last, his face was gone, too.”
― John Russell, A Knock in the Attic

“Seems like we have to spend a lot of our time distracting ourselves from the ugliness of life, doesn’t it? Like I’ve done just now. That’s why we attend plays, go to movies, read books, watch TV…and ride motorcycles: to connect with something that reveals some of the beauty of life and reminds us of what it could be like if we would all focus on these pleasurable joys instead of thinking up more creative ways to torture and harm and kill each other.”
― John Russell, Riding with Ghosts, Angels, and the Spirits of the Dead