263 Quotes by Mark Helprin

In daily life language is important, if not in itself, then as a symptom.

From long familiarity, we know what honor is. It is what enables the individual to do right in the face of complacency and cowardice. It is what enables the soldier to die alone, the political prisoner to resist, the singer to sing her song, hardly appreciated, on a side street.

He wanted actually to live inside the dream that captured his eye, to spend his days and nights in a fume of burnished gold.

If it weren’t for music, I would think that love is mortal.

Critics can neither build nor explore. All they do, really, is say yes or no – and complicate it.

A tranquil city of good laws, fine architecture, and clean streets is like a classroom of obedient dullards, or a field of gelded bulls – whereas a city of anarchy is a city of promise.

A lot of people hate heroes. I was criticized for portraying people who are brave, honest, loving, intelligent. That was called weak and sentimental. People who dismiss all real emotion as sentimentality are cowards. They’re afraid to commit themselves, and so they remain ‘cool’ for the rest of their lives, until they’re dead – then they’re really cool.

A good river is nature’s life work in song.

The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one’s soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.