Browsing Quotes By John Knowles
-
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.
Speaker: John KnowlesSource: A Separate PeacePosted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:07 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
To enlist. To slam the door impulsively on the past, to shed everything down to my last bit of clothing, to break the pattern of my life – that complex design I had been weaving since birth with all its dark threads, its unexplainable symbols set against a conventional background of domestic white and schoolboy blue, all those tangled strands which required the dexterity of a virtuoso to keep flowing – I yearned to take giant military shears to it, snap! bitten off in an instant, and nothing left in my hands but spools of khaki which could weave only a plain, flat, khaki design, however twisted they might be.
Speaker: John KnowlesSource: A Separate PeacePosted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:06 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him. It is the moment when his emotions achieve their most powerful sway over him, and afterward when you say to this person “the world today” or “life” or “reality” he will assume that you mean this moment, even if it is fifty years past. The world, through his unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever.
Speaker: John KnowlesSource: A Separate PeacePosted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:03 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
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.
Speaker: John KnowlesSource: A Separate PeacePosted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:01 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all – plus c’est la meme chose, plus ca change. Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence.
Speaker: John KnowlesSource: A Separate PeacePosted: 17 Dec 2009 at 4:00 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment!