The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt

• This perhaps was what lay at the very root of the hysteria surrounding what came to be known as the Gold Rush: Men desiring a feeling of fortune; the unlucky masses hoping to skin or borrow the luck of others, or the luck of a destination. A seductive notion, and one I thought to b wary of. To me, luck was something you either earned or invented through strength of character. you had to come by it honestly, you could not trick or bluff your way into it.

• When a man is properly drunk it is as though he is in a room by himself--there is a physical, impenetrable separation between him and his fellows.

• My very center was beginning to expand, as it always did before violence, a toppled pot of black ink covering the frame of my mind, its contents ceaseless, unaccountability limitless. My flesh and scalp started to ring and tingle and I became someone other than myself, or I became my second self, and this person was highly pleased to be stepping from the murk and into the living world where he might do just as he wished. I felt at once both lust and disgrace and wondered, Why do I relish this reversal to animal?

• I would have married an alligator if only it would share its bed. And I might as well have married an alligator, for all the kinds Eunice showed me. She had to grace or charm whatsoever. She had non charm, or anticharm. A bottomless well of antagonism and hostility. And she was terrifically ugly. And she smelled like rotten leaves.

• ...but the moments that passed while we worked the river were neither brief nor long, war in face somehow removed from the very restriction or notion of time--we were outside of time; is how it felt to me; our experience was so uncommon we were elevated to a place where such concerns as minutes and seconds were not only irrelevant but did not exist. This feeling, speaking personally, was brought on not only by the wealth our ever growing piles of gold represented, but also from the thought that this experience was born of one man's unique mind, and though I had never before pondered the notion of humanity, or whether I was happy or unhappy to be human, I now felt a sense of pride at the human mind, its curiosity and perseverance; I was obstinately glad to be alive; and glad to be myself.

• "Here lies Morris, a good man and friend. He enjoyed the finer points of civilized life but never shied from a hearty adventure or hard work. He died a free man, which is more than most people can say, if we are going to be honest about it. Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven't the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood--weak blood, diluted--and their memories aren't worth a goddamned thing, you will see what I mean. Most people are imbeciles, really, but Morris was not like this. He should have lived longer. He had more to give. And if there is a god he is a son of a bitch."

• Looking back at the camp I thought, I will never be a leader of men, and neither do I want to be one, and neither do I want to be led. I thought: I want to lead only myself.

• 'Gentlemen, it is a question often asks, and today I put it to you, and let us see if you know the answer. What is it that makes a man great? Some will point to wealth. Others to strength of character. Some will say it is a great man who never loses his temper. Some that it is one who is fervent in his worship of the Lord. But I am here to tell you precisely what it is which makes a man great, I hope that you ill listen to my words on this day, and that you will adopt them into your hearts and souls, and that you will understand my meaning. For yes! I wish to bestow greatness upon you.' ... 'A great man is one who can pinpoint a vacuity in the material world and inject into this blank space an essence of himself! A great man is one who can create good fortune in a place where there previously was none through sheer force of will! A great man, then, is one who can make something from nothing.

• When I see you, I feel the same. It is when I am away that I lose myself.