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John Fante

117 quotes

“My father was teaching me his trade. I was his son and he was showing me how to write the way his own father from Torricella Peligna had shown him, as a boy, how to work a wall of stone or lay a row of brick. I was learning how to build books. Watching a master at work. Those would be the most important days of my life.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dan Fante, about his late father John Fante. From the Introduction (December 2003) by Dan Fante to The Bandini Quartet by John Fante (the four 'Arturo Bandini' novels in one volume, published by Canongate Books Ltd.).
Also quoted by: Dan Fante
“A butcher will always cheat a fool," she said.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch.3 - p.73 [Page numbers per "The Bandini Quartet" (four books in one) published by Canongate Books Ltd., 2004, British Edition. (As to the movie of the same name, see, on Wikipedia, Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1989).)]
“He closed the door carefully, as though his whole life had been spent in the exact science of closing doors.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His mother had too much God in her.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The afternoon moved like lava.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I remembered the inside of that apartment, how it smelled of mice and dust, and the old women who sat in the lobby on hot afternoons, and the old woman with the pretty legs. Then there was the elevator man, a broken man from Milwaukee, who seemed to sneer every time you called your floor, as though you were such a fool for choosing that particular floor, the elevator man who always had a tray of sandwiches in the elevator, and a pulp magazine.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was passing the doorman of the Biltmore, and I hated him at once, with his yellow braids and six feet of height and all that dignity, and now a black automobile drove to the curb, and a man got out. He looked rich; and then a woman got out, and she was beautiful, her fur was silver fox, and she was a song across the sidewalk and inside the swinging doors, and I thought oh boy for a little of that, just a day and a night of that, and she was a dream as I walked along, her perfume still in the set morning air.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hotel was called the Alta Loma. It was built on a hillside in reverse, there on the crest of Bunker Hill, built against the decline of the hill, so that the main floor was on the level with the street but the tenth floor was downstairs ten levels. If you had room 862, you got in the elevator and went down eight floors, and if you wanted to go down in the truck room, you didn't go down but up to the attic, one floor above the main floor.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Afraid of a woman! Ha, great writer this! How can he write about women, when he's never had a woman? Oh you lousy fake, you phony, no wonder you can't write! No wonder there wasn't a woman in The Little Dog Laughed. No wonder it wasn't a love story, you fool, you dirty little schoolboy.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are a coward, Bandini, a traitor to your soul, a feeble liar before your weeping Christ. This is why you write, this is why it would be better if you died.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then Lola Linton came on, slithering like a satin snake amid the tumult of whistling and pounding feet, Lola Linton lascivious, slithering and looting my body, and when she was through, my teeth ached from my clamped jaws and I hated the dirty lowbrow swine around me, shouting their share of a sick joy that belonged to me.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I pulled the huge door open and it gave a little cry like weeping. Above the altar sputtered the blood-red eternal light, illuminating in crimson shadow the quiet of almost two thousand years.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mr. Hellfrick was an atheist, retired from the army, living on a meager pension, scarcely enough to pay his liquor bills, even though he purchased the cheapest gin on the market. He lived perpetually in a grey bathrobe without a cord or button, and though he made a pretense at modesty he really didn't care, so that his bathrobe was always open and you saw much hair and bones underneath.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a little while all resistance was gone, and I knocked on Hellfrick's door. His room was madness, pulp western magazines over the floor, a bed with sheets blackened, clothes strewn everywhere, and clothes-hooks on the wall conspicuously naked, like broken teeth in a skull. There were dishes on the chairs, cigaret butts pressed out on the window sills...He was always drinking, day and night, but he never got drunk.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I drank, greedily, until my throat suddenly choked and contracted and a horrible taste shook me. It was the kind of milk I hated. It was buttermilk. I spat it out, washed my mouth with water, and hurried to look at the other bottle. It was buttermilk, too.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Down on Spring Street, in a bar across the street from the secondhand store. With my last nickel I went there for a cup of coffee. an old style place, sawdust on the floor, crudely drawn nudes smeared across the walls. It was a saloon where old men gathered, where the beer was cheap and smelled sour, where the past remained unaltered.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suddenly she laughed again. It was a shriek, a mad laugh like the clatter of dishes and it was over as quickly as it began. I looked at her feet again. I could feel something inside her retreating. I wanted to hurt her.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe this isn't coffee at all," I said. "Maybe it's just water after they boiled your filthy shoes in it." I looked up to her black blazing eyes. "Maybe you don't know any better. Maybe you're just naturally careless. But if I were a girl I wouldn't be seen in a Main Street alley with those shoes.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't remember what I did after I left her. Maybe I went up to Benny Cohen's room over the Grand Central Market. He had a wooden leg with a little door in it. Inside the door were marijuana cigarets.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I saw a policeman strolling toward me I walked away. It was a hot night. Sand from the Mojave had blown across the city. Tiny brown grains of sand clung to my fingertips whenever I touched anything, and when I got back to my room I found the mechanism of my new typewriter glutted with sand. It was in my ears and in my hair. When I took off my clothes it fell like powder to the floor. It was even between the sheets of my bed. Lying in the darkness, the red light from the St. Paul Hotel flashing on and off across my bed was bluish now, a ghastly color jumping into the room and out again.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sat smiling wretchedly, my heart weeping for The Little Dog Laughed, for every well-turned phrase, for the little flecks of poetry through it, my first story, the best thing I could show for my whole life. It was the record of all that was good in me, approved and printed by the great J. C. Hackmuth, and she had torn it up and thrown it into a spittoon.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“those huaraches--do you have to wear them, Camilla? Do you have to emphasize the fact that you always were and always will be a filthy little Greaser?”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I tossed my shoulders and swaggered away, whistling with pleasure. In the gutter I saw a long cigaret butt. I picked it up without shame, lit it as I stood with one foot in the gutter, puffed it and exhaled toward the stars. I was an American, and goddamn proud of it. This great city, these mighty pavements and proud buildings, they were the voice of my America. From sand and cactus we Americans had carved an empire. Camilla's people had had their chance. They had failed. We Americans had turned the trick. Thank God for my country. Thank God I had been born an American!”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A cop won't pick you up for vagrancy in Los Angeles if you wear a fancy polo shirt and a pair of sunglasses. But if there is dust on your shoes and that sweater you wear is thick like the sweaters they wear in the snow countries, he'll grab you.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You'll eat hamburgers year after year and live in dusty, vermin-infested apartments and hotels, but every morning you'll see the mighty sun, the eternal blue of the sky, and the streets will be full of sleek women you never will possess, and the hot semitropical nights will reek of romance you'll never have, but you'll still be in paradise, boys, in the land of sunshine.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I am poor, and my name ends with a soft vowel, and they hate me and my father, and my father's father, and they would have my blood and put me down, but they are old now, dying in the sun and in the hot dust of the road, and I am young and full of hope and love for my country and my times, and when I say Greaser to you it is not my heart that speaks, but the quivering of an old wound, and I am ashamed of the terrible thing I have done.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The restless dust of Los Angeles fevered him. He was a greater wanderer than myself, and all day long he sought out perverse loves in the parks. But he was so ugly he never found his desire, and the warm nights with low stars and yellow moon tortured him away from his room until the dawn arrived...Some day he would leave this hated city, some day he would go back where friendship meant something, and sure enough, he went away and I got a postcard signed "Memphis Kid" from Fort Worth, Texas.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the redheaded girl from St. Louis who always asked about the Filipinos...Endlessly she spoke of the Filipinos, pitied them, thought them so brave in the face of prejudice. One day she was gone, and another day I saw her again, walking the streets, her copper hair catching sunbeams, a short Filipino holding her arm. He was very proud of her. His padded shoulders and tight waisted suit were the ultimate of tenderloin fashion, but even with the high leather heels he was a foot shorter than she.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had a way, that Hackmuth; he had a style; he had so much to give, even his commas and semi-colons had a way of dancing up and down. I used to tear the stamps off his envelopes, peel them off gently, to see what was under them.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We drove him home, down Spring Street to First and over the railroad tracks to a black neighborhood that picked up the sounds of the rattling Ford and threw the echoes over an area of dirty frame houses and tired picket fences. He got out at a place where a dying pepper tree had spilled its brown leaves over the ground, and when he walked to the porch you could hear his feet wading through the hissing dead leaves.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She would go right through a stop signal if no cars were around, and when anyone got in her way she would smash her palm on the squealing horn and hold it there. The sound rose like a cry of help through the canyons of buildings. She kept doing this, no matter whether she needed it or not.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After a mile she complained about her feet and asked me to hold the wheel. As I did it she reached down and took off her shoes. Then she took the wheel again and threw one foot over the side of the Ford. At once her dress ballooned out, spanking her face. She tucked it under herself, but even so her brown thighs were exposed even to a pinkish underthing.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After Beverly Hills there was no fog. The palms along the road stood out green in the bluish darkness, and the white line in the pavement leaped ahead of us like a burning fuse. A few clouds tumbled and tossed, but there were no stars.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Below us the breakers flayed the land with white fists. They retreated and came back to flay it again. As each breaker retreated, the shoreline broke into an ever-widening grin. We coasted in second down the spiral road, the black pavement perspiring, fog tongues licking it. the air was so clean. We breathed it gratefully. There was no dust here.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She laughed and began undressing. She was brown underneath, but it was natural brown and not a tan. I was white and ghostlike. There was a blob of heaviness at my stomach. I pulled it in to hide it. She looked at the whiteness, at my loins and legs, and smiled. I was glad when she walked toward the water.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I drew my hands over her belly and legs, felt my own desire, searched foolishly for my passion, strained for it while she waited, rolled and tore my hair and begged for it, but there was none, there was none at all, only the retreat to Hackmuth's letter and thoughts that remained to be written, but no lust, only fear of her, and shame and humiliation.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Write her a poem, spill your heart to her in sweet cadences; but I didn't know how to write poetry. It was love and dove with me, bad rhymes, blundering sentiment. Oh Christ in Heaven, I'm no writer: I can't even put down a little quatrain. I'm no good in this world. I stood at the window and waved my hands at the sky; no good at all, just a cheap fake; neither writer nor lover; neither fish nor fowl.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So down to Main Street and to Fifth Street, to the long dark bars, to the King Edward Cellar, and there a girl with yellow hair and sickness in her smile. Her name was Jean, she was thin and tubercular, but she was hard too, so anxious to get my money, her languid mouth for my lips, her long fingers at my trousers, her sickly lovely eyes watching every dollar bill.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And here was another place and another girl. Oh, how lonely she was, from away back in Minnesota. A good family too. Sure, honey. Tell my tired ears about your good family.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dear little Vivian, all the way from the clean fields of Minnesota, and not a Swede either, and almost a virgin too, just a few men short of being a virgin.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sat before my typewriter and the great awful void descended, and I beat my head with my fists, put a pillow under my aching buttocks and made little noises of agony.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She walked over to my desk and pulled a page out of the typewriter. I didn't know what was happening. I still said nothing, but I could smell liquor on her breath, and then the very peculiar but distinctive odor of decay, sweetish and cloying, the odor of oldness, the odor of this woman in the process of growing old.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I tried to answer but she interrupted and went off in a Barrymore manner, speaking deeply and tragically; murmuring of the pity of it all, the stupidity of it all, the absurdity of a hopelessly bad writer like myself buried in a cheap hotel in Los Angeles, California, of all places, writing banal things the world would never read and never get a chance to forget.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She kissed me, her mouth tasting of liverwurst on rye. She sat back, breathing with relief. I took out my handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my forehead...She pulled me down and her arms went around me and we fought until I thought it was absurd. I sat back and tried to think of another escape.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She watched me like a prize dog, and Solomon watched her like a criminal.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Forgive my body!" she said. She put her arms out to me, the tears flowing down her cheeks. "Think of my soul!" she said. "My soul is so beautiful, it can bring you so much! It is not ugly like my flesh!”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had to go through with it, and I turned around and she was nude except for hose and shoes, and then I saw the wounds. It was at the loins; it was a birthmark or something, a burn, a seared place, a pitiful, dry, vacant place where flesh was gone, where the thighs suddenly became small and shriveled and the flesh seemed dead. I closed my jaws and then I said, "What--that? Is that all, just that? It's nothing, a mere trifle." But I was losing the words, I had to say them quickly or they would never form.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Come down out of the skies, you God, come on down and I'll hammer your face all over the city of Los Angeles, you miserable unpardonable prankster. If it wasn't for you, this woman would not be so maimed, and neither would the world, and if it wasn't for you I could have had Camilla Lopez down at the beach, but no!”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The name on the mailbox was Vera Rivken, and that was her full name. It was down on the Long Beach Pike, across the street from the Ferris Wheel and the Roller Coaster. Downstairs a poolhall, upstairs a few single apartments. No mistaking that flight of stairs; it possessed her odor. The banister was warped and bent, and the grey wallpaint was swollen, with puffed places that cracked open when I pushed them with my thumb.”
John Fante (1909–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source