The novelist is less like a prophet than he is like the canary that coal miners used to take down into the shaft to test the air. When the canary gets unhappy, utters plaintive cries, and collapses, it may be time for the miners to surface and think things over.
Walker Percy
"Notes for a Novel About the End of the World"





It was during the following week, between Christmas and New Year, that I became ill, suffering simultaneous depressions and exaltations, assaulted at night by longings, succubi, and the hideous shellfire of Verdun, and in the morning by terror of unknown origin. One morning–was it Christmas morning after listening to Perry Como?–my wrists were cut and bleeding. Seeing the blood, I came to myself, saw myself as itself and the world for what it is, and began to love life. Hm, better stop the bleeding in that case. After all, why not live? Bad as things are still when all is said and done, one can sit on a doorstep in the winter sunlight and watch sparrows kick leaves.
Walker Percy
Love in the Ruins



"We found out what your hangup was and we were getting ready to condition you out of it."
"What hangup?"
"Your guilt feelings."
"I never did see that."
"You did see that your depression and suicide attempt were related to sexual guilt?"
"What sexual guilt?"
"Didn't you tell me that your depression followed une affaire of the heart with a popsy at the country club?"
"Lola is no popsy. She's a concert cellist."
"Oh." Max has a great respect for stringed instruments. "Nevertheless your guilt did follow une affaire of the heart."
"Are you speaking of my fornication with Lola in number 18 bunker?"
"Fornication," repeats Max, nodding. "You see?"
"See what?"
"That you are saying lovemaking is not a natural activity, like eating and drinking."
"No, I didn't say it wasn't natural."
"But sinful and guilt-laden."
"Not guilt-laden."
"Then sinful?"
"Only between persons not married to each other."
"I am trying to see it as you see it."
"I know you are."
"If it is sinful, why do you do it?"
"It is a great pleasure."
"I understand. Then, since it is 'sinful,' guilt feelings follow, even though it is a pleasure."
"No, they don't follow."
"Then what worries you, if you don't feel guilty?"
"That's what worries me: not feeling guilty."
Walker Percy
Love in the Ruins



"First, is it not true that in all of past history people who found themselves in difficult situations behaved in certain familiar ways, well or badly, courageously or cowardly, with distinction or mediocrity; with honor or dishonor. They are recognizable. They display courage, pity, fear, embarrassment, joy, sorrow, and so on. Such anyhow has been the funded experience of the race for two or three thousand years, has it not? Your discovery, as best as I can determine, is that there is an alternative which no one has hit upon. It is that one finding oneself in one of life's critical situations need not after all respond in one of the traditional ways. No. One may simply default. Pass. Do as one pleases, shrug, turn on one's heel and leave. Exit. Why after all need one act humanly? Like all great discoveries, it is breathtakingly simple."
Walker Percy
The Moviegoer

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