David Markson Quotes

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

~ David Markson

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

I like Mr. Dickens’ books much better than yours, Papa. Said one of Thackeray’s daughters.

~ David Markson

I still notice the burned house, mornings, when I walk along the beach. Well, obviously I do not notice the house. What I notice is what remains of the house. One is still prone to think of a house as a house, however, even if there is not remarkably much left of it.

~ David Markson

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

Although one curious thing that might sooner or later cross the woman's mind would be that she had paradoxically been practically as alone before all of this had happened as she was now, incidentally. Well, this being an autobiographical novel I can categorically verify that such a thing would sooner or later cross her mind, in fact. One manner of being alone simply being different from another manner of being alone, being all that she would finally decide that this came down to, as well. Which is to say that even when one's telephone still does function one can be as alone as when it does not.

~ David Markson

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

Coincidences undeniably imply meaning.I am rereading Hart Crane.I notice the dateOn which he stepped off that boatWas April 26.Tomorrow is April 26.The year of his suicide was 1932.I was four.I am now fifty-one.One undeniable implication in this case thenIs that the year, today,Is 1979.Afterward, Crane’s mother scrubbed floors.Eventually, I may or may notJump overboard.Are there questions?

~ David Markson

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

~ David Markson

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

~ David Markson

Still, how I nearly felt. In the midst of all that looking.

~ David Markson

Have I ever said that Turner once actually had himself lashed to the mast of a ship, to be able to later do a painting of a storm? Which has never failed to remind me of the scene in which Odysseus does the identical thing, of course, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put.

~ David Markson