--- title: "1 Mercer Work Quotes By Garth Risk Hallberg" description: "1 Mercer Work quotes by Garth Risk Hallberg. Plus more from Garth Risk Hallberg and more Mercer Work sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg" --- > [“Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd come to New York to write. It was supposed to be about America, and freedom, and the kinship of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himself-in-front-of-the-type-writer/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg) ## More by Garth Risk Hallberg > [“Despite which, Charlie seems doomed to stumble around in the dark, clutching pieces of a puzzle he still can't see.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/despite-which-charlie-seems-doomed-to-stumble-around-in-the-dark/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“He’d wanted it to be about losing, about the things we’re born into loving and then lose.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/he-d-wanted-it-to-be-about-losing-about-the-things-we-re-born-into/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Though what could anyone really say these days with one hundred percent certainty?”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/though-what-could-anyone-really-say-these-days-with-one-hundred/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Detonations crash in from nearby like walls she's a void at the center of.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/detonations-crash-in-from-nearby-like-walls-she-s-a-void-at-the/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Because if every moment of a life is present in every other, so is every old self you've ever tried to outrun. And then…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/because-if-every-moment-of-a-life-is-present-in-every-other-so-is/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Between the whiskers scraggling down his neck and the now-crooked glasses, he could have been the Black Allen Ginsberg.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/between-the-whiskers-scraggling-down-his-neck-and-the-now-crooked/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“But no, what interested him, psychologically speaking, was the sense of continuity itself, the mind's insistence that this was the same Regan he'd known…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/but-no-what-interested-him-psychologically-speaking-was-the-sense-of/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“He lights a cigarette off a candle. These death-tubes, these little crutches or fuses: useful for getting through all sorts of things you don't…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/he-lights-a-cigarette-off-a-candle-these-death-tubes-these-little/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Truly unconditional love was suffocating, in that it took so little notice of who you actually were.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/truly-unconditional-love-was-suffocating-in-that-it-took-so-little/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“And so she remained, like everything that mattered to me then, secret—to be pursued in the woods by moonlight, when I was supposed to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/and-so-she-remained-like-everything-that-mattered-to-me-then-secret/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Now, though, there was a second part, an artifact of his recent illness, as if his melancholy had, in a universe adjacent to this…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/now-though-there-was-a-second-part-an-artifact-of-his-recent-illness/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Darkness just loosens the mask. Sharpens the mind's eye. Makes the color of a remembered pencil, or a tick of waxy red on a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/darkness-just-loosens-the-mask-sharpens-the-mind-s-eye-makes-the/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“Daddy just repeated the word, internship . As an alibi, it was a thing of beauty: its overtones of responsibility, of upward aspiration, were…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/daddy-just-repeated-the-word-internship-as-an-alibi-it-was-a-thing-of/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“For a moment, he thought he sensed, beneath the visible world, some blind infrastructure connecting the two of them, or the three of them,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/for-a-moment-he-thought-he-sensed-beneath-the-visible-world-some/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) > [“No one, in the end, made it out of this life alive.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/no-one-in-the-end-made-it-out-of-this-life-alive/) [Garth Risk Hallberg](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/garth-risk-hallberg/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/mercer-work/garth-risk-hallberg/#itemlist", "name": "1 Mercer Work Quotes By Garth Risk Hallberg", "numberOfItems": 1, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd come to New York to write. It was supposed to be about America, and freedom, and the kinship of time to pain, but in order to write about these things, he'd needed experience. Well, be careful what you wish for. For now all he seemed capable of producing was a string of sentences starting, Here was William . Here was William's courage, for example. And here was William's sadness, smallness of stature, size of hands. Here was his laugh in a dark movie theater, his unpunk love of the films of Woody Allen, not for any of the obvious ways they flattered his sensibility, but for something he called their tragic sense , which he compared to Chekhov's (whom Mercer knew he had not read). Here was the way he never asked Mercer about his work; the way he never talked about his own and yet seemed to carry it with him just beneath the skin; the way his skin looked in the sodium light from outside with the light off, with clothes off, in silver rain; the way he embodied qualities Mercer wanted to have, but without ruining them by wanting to have them; the way his genius overflowed its vessel, running off into the drain; the unfinished self-portrait; the hint of some trauma in his past, like the war a shell-shocked town never talks about; his terrible taste in friends; his complete lack of discipline; the inborn incapacity for certain basic things that made you want to mother him, fuck him, give your right and left arms for him, this man-child, this skinny American; and finally his wildness, his refusal to be imaginable by anyone.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Garth Risk Hallberg" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/garth-risk-hallberg/once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himself-in-front-of-the-type-writer/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd…” — Garth Risk Hallberg", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/mercer-work/garth-risk-hallberg/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/mercer-work/garth-risk-hallberg/", "name": "Mercer Work Quotes by Garth Risk Hallberg", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/mercer-work/garth-risk-hallberg/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/64d/garth-risk-hallberg-7516_anton-chekhov_once-or-twice-at-night-he-planted-himsel_1029596.jpg" }, "description": "1 Mercer Work quotes by Garth Risk Hallberg. 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