Novelists From The United States

"I was never allowed to read the popular American children's books of my day because, as my mother said, the children spoke bad English without the author's knowing it."

"In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."

"There's no such thing as old age; there is only sorrow."

"Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive."

"The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else."

"It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them."

"In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once."

"I can't love you unless I give you up."

"It frightened him to think what must have gone to the making of her eyes."

"An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences."

"Nancy, the most beautiful town in France, has never been as beautiful as now. (...) The last time I looked out on the great architectural setting of the Place Stanislas was on a hot July evening, the evening of the National Fête. The square and the avenues leading to it swarmed with people, and as darkness fell the balanced lines of arches and palaces sprang out in many coloured light. Garlands of lamps looped the arcades leading into the Place de la Carrière, peacock-coloured fires flared from the Arch of Triumph, long curves of radiance beat like wings over the thickets of the park, the sculptures of the fountains, the brown-and-gold foliation of Jean Lamour's great gates; and under this roofing of light was the murmur of a happy crowd carelessly celebrating the tradition of half-forgotten victories."

"When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say."

"I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author’s political views."

"Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope."

"True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision."

"Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before."

"How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be "American" before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries?"

"Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone."

"I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, & consequently suggests more tugging, & pain, & diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie."

"After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them & invent others that (one is fairly sure) don't exist — or exist in a less measure."

"No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity."

"He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which his coming produced."

"The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it."

"A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue."

"It was part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counselor, that wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissues."

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be The candle or the mirror that reflects it."

"Set wide the window. Let me drink the day. I loved light ever, light in eye and brain — No tapers mirrored in long palace floors, Nor dedicated depths of silent aisles, But just the common dusty wind-blown day That roofs earth's millions."

"You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and dimension all its own."

"Reuven, as you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, as you call them— "ordinary things" is a better expression. That is the way the world is."

"I went away and cried to the Master of the Universe, "What have you done to me? A mind like this I need for a son? A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!""

"Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much, if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?...I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing; but the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing; but the man who lives the span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning- that, I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here."

"[Danny] laughed once and said, 'That man is such an ignoramus, Father.' I was angry. 'Look into his soul,' I said. 'Stand inside his soul and see the world through his eyes. You will know the pain he feels because of his ignorance, and you will not laugh.' He was bewildered and hurt. The nightmares he began to have. . . . But he learned to find answers for himself. He suffered and learned to listen to the suffering of others. In the silence between us, he began to hear the world crying.""

"It was senseless, as— I held my breath, feeling myself shiver with fear— as Billy's blindness was senseless."

"It is never pleasant to be a buffer, Reuven."

"I don't understand why I wanted to kill you."

"Then he grinned. “But it is said that hunger teaches many things. My friend, a wealth of wisdom awaits us on this journey.”"

"Retribution—ah, my friend, retribution is the sweetest of all sweet dark dreams."

"“Are you so ashamed of what you were?” Bannon cocked a white eyebrow at the question, as if it came close to the truth. “I am not shamed,” he said distinctly. “But I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service—less the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured.”"

"The bluff stone of the tower, with Revelstone rising behind it like the prow of a great ship, answered his gaze in granite permanence as if it were a prophecy by the old Giants—a cryptic perception that victory and defeat were human terms which had no meaning in the language of mountains."

"“Then why do you delay? Why do you fear?” Because I am mortal, weak. The way is only clear—not sure. In my time, I have been a seer and oracle. Now I—I desire a sign. I require to see.”"

"You did not cause his despair. Had you treated him with distrust, you would have achieved nothing but the confirmation of his distress. Distrust—vindicates itself."

"The task was impossible, and mortal human beings accomplished nothing but their own destruction when they attempted the impossible."

"I rest and rest, but I do not become young."

"It was gray cold and dead from horizon to horizon under the gray dead clouds—not the soft comfortable gray of twilit illusions, of unstark colors blurring like consolation or complacency into each other, but rather the gray of disconsolation and dismay, paradoxically dull and raw, numb and poignant, a gray like the ashen remains of color and sap and blood and bone. Gray wind drove gray cold over the gray frozen hills; gray snow gathered in this drifts under the lees of the gray terrain; gray ice underscored the black, brittle, leafless branches of the trees barely visible in the distance on his left, and stifled the gray, miserable current of the river almost out of sight on his right; gray numbness clutched at his flesh and soul."

"He no longer accused himself; he knew then that no one could be blamed for being inadequate in the face of such unanswerable malevolence. Destruction was easier than preservation, and when destruction had risen high enough, mere men and women could not be condemned if they failed to throw back the tide."

"Abruptly Loerya joined the probing. “And if there is no Creator? Or if the creation is untended?” “Then who is there to reproach us? We provide the meaning of our own lives. If we serve the Land purely to the furthest limit of our abilities, what more can we ask of ourselves?”"

"She said that it is the responsibility of the living to justify the sacrifices of the dead. Otherwise their deaths have no meaning."

"Yet this withholding of knowledge ran against every grain of his character. He believed intensely that the refusal to share knowledge demeaned both the denier and the denied."

"Power was dreadful and treacherous. When it was not great enough to accomplish its wielder’s desires, it turned against the hands which held it."

"I loved you before that. I love you now. I’m just an unconscionable bastard, and I used you, that’s all. Now I regret it."