David Markson

                with William Gaddis (1964)

“Tennessee Williams choked to death on the plastic cap of a nasal spray.” 

― David Markson, This Is Not a Novel 

“At thirty-seven, in Key West, Ernest Hemingway badly marked up Wallace Stevens’ face in a never fully explained fistfight. Stevens was fifty-seven when it happened.” 
― David Markson, This is Not a Novel and Other Novels

“At the age of eight or nine, Richard Brautigan once returned home from school and found that his entire family had moved away without a word.” 
― David Markson, This is Not a Novel and Other Novels

“Is T.S. Eliot the only poet one can think of who could have spent a year on his own in Paris at twenty-three—and managed to have no sexual encounter whatsoever?” 
― David Markson, The Last Novel

“Tolstoy's wife copied out the entire manuscript of War and Peace in longhand seven times.” 
― David Markson, Reader’s Block

“I like Mr. Dickens’ books much better than yours, Papa. Said one of Thackeray’s daughters.” 
― David Markson, The Last Novel

“Unquestionably it would have been Mary Magdalene who did the dishes at the Last Supper.
Concluded Marguerite Yourcenar.” 
― David Markson, Reader’s Block