Kyril Bonfiglioli - Don't Point That Thing at Me (1972)

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Somewhere in the trash he reads Martland has read that heavy men walk with surprising lightness and grace; as a result he trips about like a portly elf hoping to be picked up by a leprechaun.

Kyril Bonfiglioli
Why do people build houses to keep the climate out, then cut holes in the walls to let it in again? I shall never understand.

Kyril Bonfiglioli
It was still only nine o'clock when I set off on the last leg of my journey, feeling old and dirty and incapable. You probably know the feeling if you are over eighteen.

Kyril Bonfiglioli
To be on foot in the United States is only immoral, not illegal.

Kyril Bonfiglioli
The coffee having arrived (how hard it is to write without the ablative absolute!) we guzzled genteelly for a while...

Kyril Bonfiglioli
Ten minutes later I was in an enormous taxi-cab, an air-conditioned one, hired for the day for fifty dollars; it seems an awful lot, I know, but money's worth awfully little over there, you'd be surprised. It's because there's so much of it, you see.

Kyril Bonfiglioli
Ornithology used to be an arcane hobby for embittered schoolmasters, dotty spinsters and lonely little boys, but now it is as normal a weekend occupation as rug-making or wife-swapping.

Kyril Bonfiglioli
"No no, Jock…we're going to push him out of a window. Your bedroom window, I think. Yes, and we'll undress him first and say that he was making advances to you and jumped out of the window in a frenzy of thwarted love."
"I say, Charlie, really, what a filthy rotten idea; I mean, think of my wife."
"I never think of policemen's wives, their beauty maddens me like wine."

Kyril Bonfiglioli
I could almost hear him scrabbling about in his brain for a deft, light opening. His Oscar Wilde touch. Martland has only two personalities – Wilde and Eeyore.

Kyril Bonfiglioli
"Goodness," I babbled, "but how awful for you. Not drinking, I mean. I mean, imagine getting up in the morning knowing that you're not going to feel any better all day".

Kyril Bonfiglioli
He had made one mistake in an otherwise flawless performance: he hadn't told me his name. Have you ever exchanged three words with an American without being told his name?

Kyril Bonfiglioli