Two Quotations From Short Stories; Also, Many Quotations From George Herriman's Krazy Kat

Two Quotations From Short Stories

There are times even now, when I awake at four o'clock in the morning with the terrible fear that I have overslept; when I imagine that my father is waiting for me in the room below the darkened stairs or that the shorebound men are tossing pebbles against my window while blowing their hands and stomping their feet impatiently on the frozen steadfast earth. There are times when I am half out of bed and fumbling for socks and mumbling for words before I realize that I am foolishly alone, that no one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters by the pier.
At such times only the grey corpses on the overflowing ashtray beside my bed bear witness to the extinction of the latest spark and silently await the crushing out of the most recent of their fellows. And then because I am afraid to be alone with death, I dress rapidly, make a great to-do about clearing my throat, turn on both faucets in the sink, and proceed to make loud splashing ineffectual noises. Later I go out and walk the mile to the all-night restaurant.
In the winter it is a very cold walk, and there are often tears in my eyes when I arrive. The waitress usually gives a sympathetic little shiver and says, 'Boy, it must be really cold out there; you got tears in your eyes.'
'Yes,' I say, 'it sure is; it really is.'
- Alistair MacLeod, "The Boat"

When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at least ten years.
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps--an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetary among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
- William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily"

Many Quotations From George Herriman's Krazy Kat

KRAZY: Love in a kestle,
Or love in a hut
Is all the same by me,
Love on a hill or love on a plain
Or I dunt care if it's love on the sea
As long as it's love with he--
O-hoh--
Love anywhere,
Love everywhere
As long as it's love
Wodda I care--
(3 December 1916)

KRAZY: Here is a nice bowl of "krim," "Ignatz," you are a hungry l'il mice, and I offer it all to you--
IGNATZ: I spurn your offer, fool--I am no cream bibber, what I want is "cheese," strong, virile, manly "cheese," so away with your infants tipple, I am made of sterner stuff.
(2 February 1919)

KRAZY: L'il ainjil, I dreamt he kissed me.
NARRATOR: In spite of all, there is a soul made "heppy" in the end.
(30 March 1919)

KRAZY: L'il mornings glora, there him is--my kwest was not in wain--and I'm a heppy, heppy ket.
(27 July 1919)

(1. Krazy Kat watches from a cliff as a line of ships sails past.)
NARRATOR: Ships that pass in the night, whence do they come, and whither do they go? And so, "kuriosity" is born in the palpitating bosom of "Krazy Kat", "kuriosity" unrequited, and unsatisfied as the objects of his inquisitiveness lie in an element forbidden to kats--quantities of ocean, multitudes of water.
(2. The open ocean.)
Ships, whether they be of nocturnal, or diurnal passage must sail the seas, an element unfavorable to kats--which makes it look as if Krazy's kuriosity must go unappeased--
(3. Krazy Katfish swimming.)
However, whereas, and here unto, as the legal luminaries are wont to say--"Krazy" is not altogether lacking in relatives, and it would be well for the world to know that among the seas abides a relation possessed of fin, and gill, fish albeit "kat"--"Krazy Katfish"--
(4. Krazy Kat stands on a rock at the shore, whispering to Krazy Katfish.)
KRAZY: Bz-zz bzzz bzzz zz--
KATFISH: Is that so? Golly!!!
NARRATOR: Where upon an interchange of "kuriosity" ensues from Krazy Kat he of the land to Krazy Katfish he of the water--
(5. Krazy Katfish swimming swiftly.)
"Kuriosity" lends a speedy fin, thereby giving great promise of shortening our tale, and suspense to a propitious degree.
(6. Krazy Katfish floats near a ship full of owls, who answer him.)
OWLS: We be children of the night, travelers from dark to dark, escaping the sheen, and shine, of an ungracious sun. More speed, signs of dawn appearing in the East.
(7. Krazy Katfish returns to Krazy Kat, tells him, "Ket", what he, "Ketfish", has seen.)
KATFISH: "Owls"!!
KRAZY: Oh.
(8. Krazy sleeps under a tree; Ignatz "Mice" readies a wakening brick.)
IGNATZ: There he is sleeping in daytime after spending his nights in useless vagabondage, but I'll wake him up--
NARRATOR: And yet there be those who believe that kats prowl, and howl among the halls of night in nefarious and sinful pursuit.
(7 December 1919)

There is a heppy lend, fur, fur a-way!!