A garland of quotations LXXXV
Culled from the finest black hands in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday
I am surrounded by creepy murderous pedants! the Dead Father shouted. Unbearable!
•Barthelme, The Dead Father (1975).
I’m bein’ held for th’ murder of Jack Kennedy. But I didn’t do it…
•Jerry Siegel, Superman #1 (1939).
Swaim! Can’t you stop this? Oh, Swaim!
•James A. Garfield, last words (1881).
The photonic blood of bleeding night,
Stabbed by the assassin sun.
•Philip José Farmer, “Riders of the Purple Wage” (1967).
Sexual pleasure is two living bodies hugging a corpse. The corpse is the body of time itself momentarily assassinated to become consubstantial with the sense of touch.
•Malcolm de Chazal, Sens-Plastique (1948).
rest yourself among my bones
rest yourself you are the lightning
rest yourself viper
rest yourself my heart
and let your assassin hair be free in the wind.
•Bataille, “Invocation to Chance” (ca. 1944?).
Roosevelt’s in the White House. He’s doing his best.
McKinley’s in the graveyard. He’s taking his rest.
•Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, “White House Blues” (1926).
Q: Do you like Mr. Roosevelt as a man?
Guiseppe Zangara: I like him, uh, I like him if he was not the president. I’m not going to kill him if he’s not the president. He’s the president.
Q: Would you shoot me?
Guiseppe Zangara: You’re not president!
•police interrogation (1933).
Zeno of Elea…plotted to overthrow Nearchus the tyrant (or, according to others, Diomedon) but was arrested: so Heraclides in his epitome of Satyrus. On that occasion he was cross-examined as to his accomplices and about the arms which he was conveying to Lipara; he denounced all the tyrant’s own friends, wishing to make him destitute of supporters. Then, saying that he had something to tell him about certain people in his private ear, he laid hold of it with his teeth and did not let go until stabbed to death,
•Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (C3).
And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly: And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out.
•Judges 3:21–22.
There are certain considerations that strike upon the mind with irresistible force, even in the midst of its distraction; the momentary recollection of some particular scene, occasioned by the features of the devoted victim, hath often struck the dagger from the assassin’s hand.
•Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751).
Whenever the Old Man of the Mountain went out riding, a crier would go before him bearing a Danish axe with a long haft encased in silver, to which many knives were affixed. As he went the man would continually cry out: “Turn out of the way of him who bears in his hands the death of kings!”
•Jean de Joinville, The Life of Saint Louis (1309).
He was named Alaodin, and his religion was that of Mahomet. In a beautiful valley enclosed between two lofty mountains he had built a luxurious garden, stored with every delicious fruit and fragrant shrub that could be procured. Palaces of various sizes and forms were erected in different parts of the grounds, ornamented with works in gold, with paintings, and with furnishings of silk. By means of small conduits in these buildings, streams of wine, milk, honey, and some of pure water, were seen to flow in every direction. ¶ The inhabitants of these palaces were dainty and beautiful damsels, accomplished in the arts of singing, playing upon all sorts of musical instruments, dancing, and especially amorous dalliance. Clothed in rich dresses, they were seen continually sporting and amusing themselves in the garden and pavilions, their female guardians being confined within doors and never allowed to appear. Etc.
•Marco Polo, Travels (ca. 1300).
All sins are murder, even as all life is war.
•Robert Louis Stevenson, “Markheim” (1884).
Sources: Garfield: quoted in Ken Smith, Raw Deal (Blast, 1998); Farmer: in Ellison, ed., Dangerous Visions (Berkley, 1972); Chazal: trans. Irving Weiss (Wakefield, 2021); Bataille: trans. Mark Spitzer, Collected Poems (Dufour, 1999); Diogenes: trans. R.D. Hicks (Harvard UP (Loeb), 1958); Jean: trans. M.R.B. Shaw, Chronicles of the Crusades (Penguin, 1963); Polo: trans. Milton Rugoff (Signet, 1961); Stevenson: The Merry Men (Books, Inc., ca. 1937); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.