A garland of quotations XCIII

Culled from the finest protei in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday

All human language, and other cultural institutions, in fact, originated in collective murder.
•René Girard, The Scapegoat (1982).

Charles Manson’s ideals will never die.
•Al Capp, The Hardhat’s Bedtime Story Book (1971).

What failure of the human condition could produce a Charlie Manson?
•Paul O’Neil, Life 12/19/69.

No sense makes sense.
•Charles Manson, repeatedly (1969).

I tried hard. I ran in all direction. I shifted. I tried every form and shape so as not to be a murderer. Tried to be a dog, a cat, a horse, a tiger, a table, a stone! I even tried, me, too, to be a rose! Don’t laugh. I did what I could. I squirmed and twisted. People thought I had convulsions. I wanted to turn back the clock, to undo what I’d done, to live my life over until before the crime. It looks easy to go backwards—but my body couldn’t do it.
•Jean Genet, Deathwatch (1949).

Come, wrong not the quality of your desert with looking downwards, coz; but hold up your head, so: and let the Idea of what you are, be portrayed i’ your face, that men may read i’ your physnomy, “Here, within this place, is to be seen the true, rare, and accomplished monster, or miracle of nature,” which is all one. What think you of this, coz?
•Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humor (1598).

I am all things to all people. I am greed incarnate. I’m a slap-happy grappler and a low-down snake in the grass. I’m a thing who likes a thing who likes to talk. But mostly I’m a roadrunner, baby, and a mean motorscooter.
•Mike Baron, Nexus #49 (1988).

For me, certain signifiers fit you, and not others. For me, all signifiers fit me, one as well as another. I am rascal, hero, craven, brave, treacherous, loyal, at once the secret hero and asshole of the Cosmos.
•Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos (1983).

If you look into your own mind, which are you, Don Quixote or Sancho Panza? Almost certainly you are both.
•Orwell, “The Art of Donald McGill” (1941).

“They can dress me,” said Sancho, “however they want; no matter what clothes I wear I’ll still be Sancho Panza.”
•Cervantes, Don Quixote II (1615).

Sources: Girard: trans. Yvonne Freccero (Johns Hopkins UP, 1989); Manson: quoted in Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter (Bantam, 1980); Genet: trans. Bernard Frechtman, The Maids and Deathwatch: Two Plays (Grove, 1962); Orwell: A Collection of Essays (HBJ, 1953); Cervantes: trans. Edith Grossman (Ecco, 2003); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.