David Markson Quotes

• Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects.

  David Markson

  Fundamentals, Mood, Existence

  David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

  10 Copy quote

• In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in.

  David Markson

  Profound, Information, Facts

  David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

  9 Copy quote

• What do any of us ever truly know?

  David Markson

  Knows

  David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

  4 Copy quote

• Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano.
  What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again.

  David Markson

  Play, Piano, Pieces

  David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

  5 Copy quote

• Can Protagonist think of a single film that interests him as much as the three-hundredth best book he ever read?

  David Markson

  Book, Thinking, Three

  David Markson (1996). “Reader's Block”

  4 Copy quote

• The morning’s recollection of the emptiness of the day before. Its anticipation of the emptiness of the day to come.

  David Markson

  Morning, Emptiness, Anticipation

  David Markson (2016). “This is Not a Novel and Other Novels”, p.216, Counterpoint

  4 Copy quote

• You can learn more by going to the opera than you ever can by reading Emerson. Like that there are two sexes.

  David Markson

  Sex, Reading, Two

  4 Copy quote

• Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover...or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?

  David Markson

  Solitude, Anxious, Persons

  4 Copy quote

• Once, I had a dream of fame. Generally, even then, I was lonely.

  David Markson

  Dream, Lonely, Fame

  David Markson (1988). “Wittgenstein's Mistress”

  4 Copy quote

• Is T.S. Eliot the only poet one can think of who could have spent a year on his own in Paris at twenty-three—and managed to have no sexual encounter whatsoever?

  David Markson

  Thinking, Years, Paris

  4 Copy quote

• Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm. One's language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered.

  David Markson

  Storm, Ships, Language

  David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

  4 Copy quote

• You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michaelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad.

  David Markson

  Life, Mad, Anxiety

  David Markson (1988). “Wittgenstein's Mistress”

  4 Copy quote

• Trying to imagine E. M. Forster, who found Ulysses indecorous, at a London performance of Lenny Bruce—to which in fact he was once taken. Trying to imagine the same for a time-transported Nathaniel Hawthorne—who during his first visit to Europe was even shocked by the profusion of naked statues.

  David Markson

  Taken, Europe, Trying

  David Markson (2007). “The Last Novel”, p.57, Counterpoint

  7 Copy quote

• I also believe I met William Gaddis once. He did not look Italian.

  David Markson

  Believe, Italian, Looks

  David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

  4 Copy quote

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