F. Q. DAWN POWELL

F.Q. = Favorite Quotes

With one exception, all names are in pronoun form to protect the guilt of the parties involved.
The following quotes are not-so-randomly selected words from a Dawn Powell novel.

Published in 1962, the plot of The Golden Spur is clearly stated in a New York Times review with the conclusion that the author's pyrotechnic wickedness is guaranteed to satisfy

Golden Spur bulletin board:
Sunday painter offers free dental service in exchange for model.

A fleeting echo of a soft, apologetic twine, a hint of unexpectedly eager lips in a dark vestibule with sweet words lost in the roar of passing El trains.

City women were wonderful...but very strange. He heard them arguing over the comparative merits of their diaphragms and had the good sense to know they were not speaking of singing.

Her country twang fooled no one. She never darned a sock, seldom made her own bed, thought coffee was born in delicatessen containers and all food grew in frozen packages.
Her pretty feet were more likely to be on the wall or tangled up in sheets than on the ground, and as for being behind her man, he found out sooner or later, she was really on his back.

The girls never asked questions about a man’s private interests or listened when they tried to tell them. For them it was enough that he was a man and he was there. Who needs a talking man?

If a guy could produce enough background, music, and scenery changes, a girl could stand almost anybody.

***
Fate, that cheap opportunist, never lets a winner down.
***

The customers were not ordinary bar types or even bohemian types but seemed a collection of Rorschach blobs in the watery pink light.

He wanted loneliness so he could suffer the old ache of yearning for human contact.

“Lonely, what do you know about loneliness! Why, you’re not even married."

Some old friends went to their graves without learning to like each other, without even getting to know each other.

He took pride and comfort in the doctor’s remark that he was the only young person who had the gift of curiosity. Students used to have it...the doctor said, but now they had “empathy.”

***
Confession perfumes the sin.
***

At Yale, he ought to have learned that people believe who ever shouted the loudest and pushed the hardest. Deborah was his wife, Anita was his mistress but Amnesia had been his true friend... Amnesia gave him back his arrogance and dignity, the proper contempt for students and fellow men that was necessary for a teacher.

Father and mother were about to engage in one of their obscure duels, flailing delicately at each other with lace-edged handkerchiefs that concealed from the observer the weapon and the wound...

When their opposite views might have led to bickering they used their daughter as a buffer, and had grown so accustomed to speaking to each other through her that they hardly thought of her as a person but as an intercom...A game which excluded her, but afforded her privacy and freedom...

She was such a good child, such an obedient daughter, such a treasure! But what heaven to have her being good and obedient some place else, leaving them to their mature, well-organized selfishness.

***
There was truth in every lie if you waited long enough, and you might as well believe everything while you waited.
***

He had gotten married and later famous–two conditions that forbade a man to have a best friend...His fourth wife was prouder of him for having kept his waistline than for keeping his reputation...He never gave any of his friends any credit. He could use up their money, their life stories, their profitable connections and then complain they blocked his work.

“I don’t know why on God’s earth I missed him after he was dead, because I missed him more when he was alive.”

Blogger's Notes
"Her country twang fooled no one" is a paraphrase, as is the "empathy" sentence. All other quoted words are verbatim, including such Powellisms as "yessiring and nosirring."

(Including quotation marks)
GOOGLE-BALL Scores:

"Dawn Powell Day"==========10
"Dorothy Parker Day"=====28,500

I have been a Dorothy Parker fan ever since I saw my first Big Blonde.
I have been a Dawn Powell fan ever since Mr. Hobbes mentioned her name
two months ago.
Hobbes is the Chancellor Pro Tem of the Lewis Carroll School of Logic.

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