Evan S. Connell > Quotes

“ She was not certain what she wanted from life, or what to expect from it, for she had seen so little of it, but she was sure that in some way - because she willed it to be so - her wants and her expectations were the same.
For a while after their marriage she was in such demand that it was not unpleasant when he fell asleep. Presently, however, he began sleeping all night, and it was then she awoke more frequently, and looked into the darkness, wondering about the nature of men, doubtful of the future, until at last there came a night when she shook her husband awake and spoke of her own desire. Affably he placed one of his long white arms around her waist; she turned to him then, contentedly, expectantly, and secure. However, nothing else occurred, and in a few minutes he had gone back to sleep.
This was the night Mrs. Bridge concluded that while marriage might be an equitable affair, love itself was not.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

“He remembered enthusiasm, hope, and a kind of jubilation or exultation. Cheerfulness, yes, and joviality, and the brief gratification of sex. Gladness, too, fullness of heart, appreciation, and many other emotions. But not joy. No, that belonged to simpler minds.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mr. Bridge

“Her first name was India-she was never able to get used to it.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

“But not joy. No, that belonged to simpler minds.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mr. Bridge

“some people go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain; and”
― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

“She spent a great deal of time staring into space, oppressed by the sense that she was waiting. But waiting for what? She did not know. Surely someone would call, someone must be needing her. Yet each day proceeded like the one before. Nothing intense, nothing desperate, ever happened. Time did not move. The home, the city, the nation, and life itself were eternal; still she had a foreboding that one day, without warning and without pity, all the dear, important things would be destroyed.”
― Evan S. Connell

“You’re not as cold as you pretend to be,’ she said. ‘I think your doors open in different places, that’s all. Most people just don’t know how to get in to you. They knock and they knock where the door is supposed to be, but it’s a blank wall. But you’re there. I’ve watched you. I’ve seen you do some awfully cold things warmly and some warm things coldly. Or does that make sense?”
― Evan S. Connell, Mr. Bridge

“The years were falling over like ducks in a shooting gallery, and it seemed to Mr. Bridge that he had scarcely taken aim at one when it disappeared.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mr. Bridge

“I wouldn't have missed it for the world," said Mrs. Bridge, smiling all around, "and I feel awfully lucky. Even so we were certainly glad to see the Union Station. I suppose no matter how far you go there's no place like home."

She could see they agreed with her, and surely what she had said was true, yet she was troubled and for a moment she was almost engulfed by a nameless panic.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

“Just across from Bismarck stood Fort Lincoln where friends and relatives of Custer’s dead cavalrymen still lived, and these emigrating Sioux could perceive such bitterness in the air that one Indian on the leading boat displayed a white flag. Yet, in accordance with the laws of human behavior, the farther downstream they traveled the less hostility they encountered, and when the tiny armada reached Standing Rock near the present border of South Dakota these Indians were welcomed as celebrities. Men, women and children crowded aboard the General Sherman to shake hands with Sitting Bull. Judson Elliot Walker, who was just then finishing a book on Custer’s campaigns, had to stand on a chair to catch a glimpse of the medicine man and reports that he was wearing “green wire goggles.” No details are provided, so green wire goggles must have been a familiar sight in those days. Sitting Bull mobbed by fans while wearing green wire goggles. It sounds like Hollywood.”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

“A leaf flattened itself against the window beside his head and leaped away into the darkness, and a feeling of profound despair came over him because everything he had done was useless. All that he believed in and had attempted to prove seemed meager, all of his life was wasted”
― Evan S. Connell, Mr. Bridge

“Captain Jack, that volatile Modoc, seems to have been handled still more causally. After being hanged and buried, Jack was exhumed, embalmed, and exhibited at carnivals: admission ten cents. How many instances of such sensibility one chooses to catalogue may be limited by the amount of time spent turning over musty pages. During the seventeenth century, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, came upon a wood plank near the ruins of Ft. Crèvecoeur deep in the wilderness of the New World, upon which a French deserter had printed: NOUS SOMMES TOUS SAUVAGES”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

“Trenta, trentacinque, quaranta: gli anni erano sempre passati a farle visita come zie criticone, e sempre erano scomparsi senza lasciare traccia, senza fare rumore. E adesso ne era arrivato un altro.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

“At the Louvre she immediately recognized the Venus de Milo, even though they happened to approach from the rear, and of course the Mona Lisa was unmistakable; it looked exactly like the reproductions.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

“Passava molto tempo a fissare il vuoto, oppressa da un senso di attesa. Ma attesa di che cosa? Non lo sapeva.”
― Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge

“Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind Sees God in clouds … Custer,”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn

“La neve cadde tutta la notte. Cadde senza fare rumore e coprì il terreno gelato e le foglie morte sotto l'acero, e piegò i rami delle conifere, e per ore e ore cadde come farina dalle nuvole alte color madreperla.”
― Evan S. Connell

“You're not as cold as you pretend to be,' she said. 'I think your doors open in different places, that's all. Most people just don't know how to get in to you. They knock and they knock where the door is supposed to be, but it's a blank wall. But you're there. I've watched you. I've seen you do some awfully cold things warmly and some warm things coldly. Or does that make sense?'

'I'd have to think about it,' he smiled, and picked up the menu. 'What do you recommend?'

'Turtle soup.'

'Turtle soup?'

'Never mind, Walter, there isn't any. I was being foolish again.' She sighed...”
― Evan S. Connell, Mr. Bridge

“The West was not dull, it was stupendously dull, and when not dull it was murderous. A man could get killed without realizing it. There were unbelievable flash floods, weird snakes, and God Himself did not know what else, along with Indians descending as swiftly as the funnel of a tornado. On”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn

“According to the Trib, DeRudio finally escaped because some beavers dove into the Little Bighorn. “DeRudio followed them, got out of sight, and after hiding twelve hours or more … .” Beavers? Why would he follow beavers? The Trib does not elaborate.”
― Evan S. Connell, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn