John Fowles
John Fowles
John Robert Fowleswas an English novelist of international stature, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work reflects the influence of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth31 March 1926
character events
It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.
mean one-day wish
You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be. One day you will know what that means, perhaps. And you will smile. Not against me. But with me.
suicide writing contradictory
To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attempts at escape.
age failing virtue
The word is the most imprecise of signs. Only a science-obsessed age could fail to comprehend that this is its great virtue, not its defect.
trying cages environment
Always we try to put the wild in a cage.
beautiful thinking space
People knew less of each other, and so were more individual. The entire world was not for them only a push or switch away. Strangers were strange, and sometimes with an exciting, beautiful strangeness. It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more. But I am a heretic, I think our ancestors' isolation was like the greater space they enjoyed: it can only be envied. The world is only too literally too much with us now.
thinking mercy insects
I think we are just insects, we live a bit and then die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.
art
Science disembodies; art embodies.
life heart sitting
I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.
alive way
Alive. Alive in the way that death is alive.
distance
The profoundest distances are never geographical.
fine feels i-can
You're not me. You can't feel like I feel." "I can feel." "No you can't. You just choose not to feel or something and everything's fine." "It's not fine. It's just not so bad.
acceptance accepting-yourself there-comes-a-time
There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.
stupid silly intelligent
There are only two races on this planet - the intelligent and the stupid.