“Sometimes the sordidness of his present existence, not to mention the stifling, clammy heat of the apartment his finances had forced him to take, on the third floor of an ugly old house on Binghamton’s West Side—‘ the nice part of town,’ everybody said (God have mercy on those who had to live in the…”— John Gardner, amazon.comTagged: Binghamton, first lines of books
“Her face was like a child's, not yet touched by the shadow of family deaths. Behind her there was a white, Spanish-looking building, large, spear-shaped fronds, and a wide, bright expanse of water. Sunlight fell everywhere, not least (one felt) in the young woman's heart. He had never seen anyone mo…”— John Gardner, amazon.comTagged: Aging, Lost Time, Love, History of Faces
“The painful realization came that he did not feel as guilty even about the murder as he felt about his betrayal of his calling.”— John Gardner, Peter Mickelsson, amazon.comTagged: Conviction, Vocation
“If music was studied, recreated or now-first-expressed emotion, why was he listening with such strained intensity, as if to learn some answer, solve some important life-riddle? Wasn't it the case, in fact, that he'd been listening all this while for the wrong thing entirely; that music— for that mat…”— John Gardner, Peter Mickelsson, amazon.comTagged: Art, Liberal Arts, Meaning, Music
“It even crossed his mind, as he stood idly waiting, his hand resting on the wallpaper books, that maybe he ought to get a rifle. Why not? His father had taken him hunting as a boy; the memory rose in his mind with wonderful vividness— creeks, trees, sunlight, squirrels scampering along high, leafy b…”— John Gardner, amazon.comTagged: Relationships, Slowly Dying
“The question is whether the Ideal exists in actuality or only in our clumsy, moment-by-moment emotions— continually shifting potential; in other words 'out there' or 'in here' or both: God's voice, so to speak, or the opinion, on a particular Tuesday, of some human— or both at once. Am I leaving thi…”— John Gardner, Peter Mickelsson, amazon.comTagged: Idealism, Ideals
“When they had fights about Ellen's playing around— a phrase that, inexplicably, filled him with rage— it always seemed later that it was not her infidelity that brought on the fights, nor his guilt at his own unconfessed infidelity, but the gin they'd drunk. It had seemed not in the real world, as r…”— John Gardner, amazon.comTagged: Relationships
“He'd never in his life heard music so unearthly. Perhaps it was the shale of the mountainsides, or the breath of cold fog on the river; whatever the reason, the music, by the time it reached Mickelsson, seemed nothing that human voices could conceivably produce. If stones were to sing, taking their…”— John Gardner, amazon.comTagged: Music, Theology, Perfect Music