Russell Hoban Quotes

I was bored at school and bored in a lot of the kitchens. It seemed like all I was doing was putting things into saute pans.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

Doing the same character over and over, it gets boring.

I think we were all frustrated with our daily routine.

Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there's drudgery in every job you're going to do.

I get quite fed up being on a film set day after day, six days a week. It can get to be a grind.

The more I get used to my life, the more restless I become.

I'm fed up of doing run-of-the-mill stuff.

You do something, the same thing over and over again for a long time, you're gonna feel like crap.

I was a housewife, I suppose, and luckily I have a very high boredom threshold.

Doing the same thing in the same way year after year is like eating a quail a day for thirty days. Along toward the middle of the month a fellow begins to long for a broiled crow or a slice of cold dog.

Following straight lines shortens distances, and also life.

Sunday afternoons are the longest afternoons of all.

Someone has somewhere commented on the fact that millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Sunday is the day people go quietly mad, one way or another.

In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.

So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed. The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths. Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.

People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring.

Give me boredom. At least I know where I'm going to eat and sleep tonight.

I was still owed an explanation, I thought, but so what? What good was it going to do me? It wouldn't have made me any happier. It was like scratching when you have chicken pox. You think it's going to help, but the itch moves over, and then moves over again. My itch suddenly felt miles away, and I couldn't have reached it with the longest arms in the world. Realizing that made me scared that I was going to be itchy forever, and I didn't want that.

You don't want roast beef and Yorkshire every night and twice on Sunday.

Any of us probably could do more important things than we are doing. Any of us could use some changes in our tasks. But none of us - and still stay alive and sane - could do without something to do.

Now public business takes up so much of my time that I must get time a Sundays or a nights to look after my own matters.

While I am on, I can discipline myself to that extent. When I am off, I can't discipline myself at all. On the other hand, when I am off, there are so many things I like doing, it doesn't really matter.