When I start out to make a fool of myself, there’s very little can stop me. If I’d known where it would end, I’d never let anything start… if I’d been in my right mind, that is. But once I’d seen her, once I’d seen her, I was not in my right mind for quite some time.
Maybe I’ll live so long that I’ll forget her. Maybe I’ll die trying.
Personally, I don’t like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she’ll fool a husband, I figure she’ll fool me.
Everybody is somebody’s fool.
Once, off the hump of Brazil, I saw the ocean so darkened with blood it was black, and the sun fainting away over the lip of the sky. We’d put in at Fortaleza, and a few of us had lines out for a bit o’ idle fishin’. It was me had the first strike. A shark, it was. Then there was another, and another shark again… ’till all about, the sea was made of sharks, and more sharks, still, and no water at all. My shark had torn himself from the hook, and the scent, or maybe the stain, it was, and him bleeding his life away drove the rest of them mad. Then the beasts to to eatin’ each other. In their frenzy, they ate at themselves. You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stinging your eyes, and you could smell the death, reeking up out of the sea. I never saw anything worse… until this little picnic tonight. And you know, there wasn’t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.
Well, Mr. Bannister’s picnic party was most typical of him. A lot of trouble and a great deal of money went into it, but it was no more a picnic than Bannister was a man.
Is this what you folks do for amusement in the evening – sit around toasting marshmallows and call each other names? If you’re so anxious for me to join the game, I’ll be glad to. I have a few names I’d like to be calling you myself.
The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I’ll concentrate on that.
New York is not as big a city as it pretends to be.
This is I, thinking myself a very gay dog, indeed. But, here was a beautiful girl, all by herself, and me with plenty of time, nothin’ to do but get myself into trouble. Some people can smell danger. Not me.
That’s how I found her and from that moment I did not use my head, except to think about her.
I never make up my mind about anything at all, until it’s over and done with.
Well, it’s my own fault, but that’s how I got into it, big boob that I am.
Either me or the rest of the whole world is absolutely insane.
“One who follows his nature keeps his original nature in the end.” But, haven’t you heard ever of somethin’ better to follow?
Like the sharks, mad with their own blood, chewin’ away at their own selves.
You were smart to carry a gun traveling alone in the park, but I knew you had the gun in your bag. Why throw away the bag?
It’s easy, you just pull the trigger.
Well, they never put me in jail in America. You know, the nicest jails in the world are in Australia, the worst in Spain.
I killed a man.
Is there a law against that?
Would Your Highness care to gamble?
I spent the next day in the hiring hall waitin’ for a ship. That way, big boob that I am, I thought I could escape her.
And what was I, Mike O’Hara, doin’ on a luxury yacht, pleasure cruisin’ in the sunny Caribbean Sea? Well, it’s clear now. I was chasin’ a married woman. But, that’s not the way I wanted to look at it. No. To be a real prize fathead like Mike O’Hara, you’ve got to swallow whole all the lies you can think up to tell yourself.
He said the world was bad. We can’t run away from the badness. And you’re right there. But, she said we can’t fight it, we must deal with the badness. Make terms. And didn’t the badness deal with you and make its own terms in the end? Surely?
