David Goodis > Quotes

“The trouble with people is they don't understand people.”
― David Goodis

“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.”
― David Goodis, Of Tender Sin

“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.”
― David Goodis, Dark Passage

“You know me. Guys like me come a dime a dozen. No fire. No backbone. Dead weight waiting to be pulled around and taken to places where we want to go but can't go alone. Because we're afraid to go alone. Because we're afraid to be alone. Because we can't face people and we can't talk to people. Because we don't know how. Because we can't handle life and don't know the first thing about taking a bite out of life. Because we're afraid and we don't know what we're afraid of and still we're afraid. Guys like me.”
― David Goodis, Dark Passage

“It's just that I'm curious, that's all. He usually walks alone" "Yeah, he's a loner, all right," the waitress murmured. "Even when he's with someone, he's alone.”
― David Goodis, Shoot the Piano Player

“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.”
― David Goodis, Of Tender Sin

“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.”
― David Goodis, Of Tender Sin

“He craved Mildred’s body and he couldn’t do without it, and that was the one and only reason he went on living with her.”
― David Goodis, Cassidy's Girl

“I lost my spinal column a good many years ago. There ain't no surgery can put it back. Even if there was, I wouldn't want it. I like it better this way. More comfortable.”
― David Goodis, Street of No Return

“For the sum of everything was a circle, and the circle was labelled Zero”
― David Goodis, Shoot the Piano Player

“There's nothing fragile about this one. That ain't a fragile nose or mouth or chin, and yet it's female, more female than them fragile-pretty types who look more like ornaments than girls.”
― David Goodis, Shoot the Piano Player

“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.”
― David Goodis, Of Tender Sin

“Her features were thin and her skin was pale and she was certainly not pretty. But it was an exciting face. It was terribly exciting because it radiated something that a man couldn't see with his eyes but could definitely feel in his bloodstream.”
― David Goodis, Street of No Return

“The police, he imagined, were now walking around the parked car. He imagined their bandit chaser was parked beside the car and now they were walking around it and looking at it and not saying anything. Now they were inside it. They would see the interior of the automobile. They were tremendous, these police, because the next thing they would do was to look at each other. They would look around at the night air. They would just stand there. The police, he told himself, were marvelous when it came to just standing there. Sometimes they elaborated on it a little and pushed their caps back and forth on their heads. Nobody could push a cap back and forth on his head like a policeman.”
― David Goodis

“You've really earned it, he thought. You've played a losing game and actually enjoyed the idea of losing, almost like them freaks who get their kicks when they're banged around. You've heard tell about that type, the ones who pay the girls to burn them with lit matches, or put on high heeled shoes and step on their faces. That kind of weird business. And it's always the same question. What makes them that way? But you never took the trouble to figure the answer. What the hell, it was their private worry, it didn't concern you.”
― David Goodis, Street of No Return

“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.”
― David Goodis, Night Squad

“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.”
― David Goodis, Shoot the Piano Player

“He moved on down the alley, his feet walking forward and his brain swimming backward through a sea of time. It was a dark sea, much darker than the alley. The tide was slow and there were no waves, just tiny ripples that murmured very softly. Telling him about yesterday. Telling him that yesterday could never really be discarded, it was always a part of now. There was just no way to get rid of it. No way to push it aside or throw it into an ash can, or dig a hole and bury it. For all buried memories were nothing more than slow-motion boomerangs, taking their own sweet time to come back. This one had taken seven years.”
― David Goodis, Street of No Return

“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.”
― David Goodis, The Burglar

“His head felt as though someone who didn't like him had inserted tubes through his eyeballs and into his brain and sent hot metal through the tubes.”
― David Goodis, CASSIDY'S GIRL

“who like the taste of being hurt. That makes you lower than the mice and the roaches. At least they try to save their skins, they got a normal outlook. But you, you’re just a clown that ain’t funny. And that’s a sad picture, that’s the saddest picture of all. Like on the outside it’s the stupid crazy smile and inside it’s a gloomy place where all they play is the blues. He frowned.”
― David Goodis, Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s

“Just go along with it, he told himself. You get involved with the Night Squad, there's no telling what they might do, even though they work from city hall and are listed officially as policemen.”
― David Goodis, Night Squad

“Just then someone called his name and he turned and saw the torn and colorless polo shirt, the slacks that couldn’t be patched any more. He saw the sunken-cheeked cadaver, the living waste of time and effort that added up to the face and body of his younger brother.”
― David Goodis, Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s

“Parry said, “I’m a coward. I don’t like pain.” “We’re all cowards,” Coley said. “There’s no such thing as courage. There’s only fear. A fear of getting hurt and a fear of dying. That’s why the human race has lasted so long. You won’t”
― David Goodis, Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s

“I don’t know what got her into this kind of life. I know she isn’t made for it. She’s such a healthy girl, she’s full of living. She needs a guy. She needs a home. And kids. If they put her in prison, she’ll decay. I want to see her laughing. I want to see her bending over a stove. Wheeling a baby carriage down the street. I can’t see her behind bars. I can’t see that.”
― David Goodis, Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s

“For an instant he thought of arguing the point. Then he tossed the idea away, reminding himself that this was Night Squad and there was no arguing with Night Squad. Because they're screwballs, he told himself. Because they're the kind that oughta be in cages and if you get them upset, you're messing with homicidal maniacs.”
― David Goodis, Night Squad