My Petition For More Space Quotes

From the book's jacket:

Poynter has been on the line since before dawn, as are thousands of others, pressed together, waiting their turns at the window to present their individual petitions. His is for more space--a notion so preposterous that when it is discovered it shocks, reverberates down the line, almost triggering violent reactions. In front of Poynter, so tightly jammed against him that he can see no more than the side of her face, is a girl petitioning to change her job. And, locked together in this fearful proximity, they talk, explore their predicaments, and perhaps fall in love.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from My Petition For More Space, by John Hersey

“Nowadays it takes great vanity, great force of character, a gift for climbing on others’ backs, tirelessness, and doubtless a pinch of talent for a man to become famous. To stay famous is almost impossible.”

“The woman’s serenity moves me very deeply—it reaches down to the pool of strong feelings in my chest... I think—perhaps I merely imagine—that there is something more. She has come to terms with what bothers the rest of us. What is her secret? I wish I had the nerve to shout to her across all the people and ask her: What is your secret? In her nodding way she glances at our group and sees us staring at her. She does not smile, and the light changes in her eyes. She guards the secret.”

“Bureaucracy attracts such mediocre people; we are in the hands of imbeciles.”

           

            “Let’s not play this game. I’d rather imagine your face. You’re like a character in a novel; I have to create

             your face myself”

            “But then when you see me…”

            “You’ll be in the movie made from the book.”

            “You won’t like seeing a different face from the one you’ve made up.”

            “If it’s a good movie, it won’t matter.”

“It takes a surprisingly long time to detect stupidity of certain sorts in a person.”

“The time will come—I trust it will—when, hoping to pry open a new kind of future, I will share my past with the girl in front of me… I will look straight into her eyes (what color are they? How far apart are they?), and I will say that I want to tell her everything, but I will soon catch myself lying.

“I have always believed that a person’s name is an aspect of his temperament. It has to be.”

“Are the selfish after all most vulnerable? No, that is too easy. There are kinds and kinds of selfishness. His is all sensory. Also, he is a particular sort of hedonist: a stupid hedonist.”

“It comes to me that he is the sort of human being who will survive. He will survive anything. Storm, famine, mob, war, massacre, pressure of numbers. In order to survive, he will with even-handed equanimity destroy and rescue. Partner and enemy, chopper and baton, coward and hero—he conducts equally well on alternating and direct current”

“This oily glass in the amber light blocks the primary sense—the sense which, more than all the others, defines space, gives lips and breasts and thighs reality and literature its power. And guides human judgment—for eyes look into eyes to find the elusive truth that spoken words so often blur. The window’s glass renders that kind of truth-seeking impossible here. This is what makes authority so infuriating: It always hides its eyes.”

“She moves behind me from my left to my right, indiscriminately wishing people luck. Lack of discrimination is just as much a form of hatred as lack of feeling; I guess I must face it that this jolly grandmother hates everybody.”

“Now as I hurry toward the street door, that hope having been let whooshingly out of me like compressed air from a tank, I am nevertheless full of hope all over again.”


It was a lovely read! I'll post a review for you all soon.