132 Quotes by John Knowles

But I was used to finding something deadly in things that attracted me; there was always something deadly lurking in anything I wanted, anything I loved.

The next major advance in the health of the American people will be determined by what the individual is willing to do for himself.

But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.

As I said, this was my sarcastic summer. It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak.

It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart

There was no harm in taking aim, even if the target was a dream.

Your war memories will be with you forever, you'll be asked about them thousands of times after the war is over. People will get their respect for you from that-partly from that, don't get me wrong-but if you can say that you were up front where there was some real shooting going on, then that will mean a whole lot to you in years to come.

It was hard to remember in the heavy and sensual clarity of these mornings; I forgot whom I hated and who hated me. I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise, or because these mornings were too full of beauty for me, because I knew of too much hate to be contained in a world like this.

I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.