438 Quotes by John Fowles

Even the simplest knowledge of the names and habits of flowers or trees starts this distinguishing or individuating process, and removes us a step from total reality towards anthropocentrism.

But suddenly he comprehended why her face haunted him, why he felt this terrible need to see her again: it was to possess her, to melt into her, to burn, to burn, to burn to ashes on that body and in those eyes. To postpone such a desire for a week, a month, a year, several years even, that can be done. But for eternity is when the iron bites.

If you feel something deeply, you’re not ashamed to show your feeling.

Laziness, I am afraid, was Charles’s distinguishing trait.

In essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization’s hardest winters.

A look I shall never forget, because it was almost one of hatred, and hatred in her face was like spite in the Virgen Mary’s; it reversed the entire order of nature.

In my opinion a lot of people who may seem happy now would do what I did or similar things if they had the money and the time. I.

I hate the uneducated and the ignorant. I hate the pompous and the phoney. I hate the jealous and the resentful. I hate the crabbed and mean and the petty. I hate all ordinary dull little people who aren’t ashamed of being dull and little.

You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it... fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf – your book, your romanced autobiography. We are all in the flight from the real reality. That is the basic definition of Homo sapiens.