Simon Grim Quotes in Henry Fool (1997)

Simon Grim: I worked, while you sat back and comfortably dismissed the outside world as too shallow, stupid and mean to appreciate your ideas.

Henry Fool: Is that such a priority? Is that some sort of measure of a man's worth? To drag what's best in him out into the street so every average slob with some pretense to taste can poke it with a stick?

Simon Grim: Maybe. Maybe it is.

Susan Weber: Decisive, committed, admittedly obscure work, indifferent to main-stream approval and unafraid of confrontation with moral and aesthetic absolutes. This, more than you might imagine, is what keeps people from jumping out windows and under trains. Adding to mass-cultural self-congratulation is, of course, its own reward I suppose. Cheap, immediate and disposal as it is... Sorry.

Simon Grim: So you think it's okay for me to be unpopular...

Susan Weber: Oh, I think it's necessary.

Simon Grim: You're an unusual person.

Susan Weber: I have few friends.

Simon Grim: Real life experiences taught me much that perhaps I'd overlooked being a poet laureate in cultural touchstones. People want a good laugh now and then, Ned. Trust me. Good old fashion slapstick humor, naughty innuendo, a few well-placed fart jokes. Enough with the earnest reflection. The tragic but unifying elusiveness of the human spirit in modern times, and so on. I'm through with it. Only now, after all this heart-break and controversy, only now have I been able to confront my inner clown.