Quotes from James McCourt

As the pearl is achieved through the stimulus of finely comminuted particles of silicon and is destined to be worn about the soignée necks of some of the better carcasses in town, we take Czgowchwz out of the thrall of time and cultivate a legend.

Movie stars, concert stars, opera stars, fallen stars sparkled on and off.

Then, shrouded in chinchilla, she walked without further ceremony out the great wide gap in the opera-house wall, and up Seventh Avenue through the all-but-deserted Rialto alone, followed at a distance by her retainers, like a star.

So many times Czgowchwz, or Czgowchwz to this or that root or powder, was still Czgowchwz, as is number one; and Czgowchwz over Czgowchwz, like Czgowchwz in an infinite hall of electric Czgowchwz mirrors, was but Czgowchwz.

Dead as a doornail, yet dreaming of Venice.

Meanwhile, pipe down, there are people trying to die in here.

Whenever addressed by her saint's name, she seemed to feel starched shifts, icy douches, and furtive subcellar scents threatening all over again—memory's imperishable dues.

She ruminated, wondering in terms of ration, quotient, multiplicand, root, power, infinity, surd.

Our moods,' she asked. 'Are they perhaps something like thrusts—rhapsodic ones—toward stasis: self-finale?

What is laughter… but somehow the cabaletta to grief?