John Knowles
John Knowles
John Knowles was an American novelist best known for A Separate Peace. He died in 2001 at the age of 75...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 September 1926
CountryUnited States of America
morning sleep night
I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of night before, that sleep suspended all but changed nothing, that you couldn’t make yourself over between dawn and dusk.
immature affection demeaning
It was demeaning to scrape affection from virtually everyone you encountered. That was immature.
tree violence endure
So the more things remained the same, the more they changed after all. Nothing endures. Not love, not a tree, not even a death by violence.
desire purpose firsts
Gene, on the desire to be Finny: "I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas.
peace children men
Stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging elsewhere, we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men.
sun born
We are all born equally far from the sun.
tone separate-peace force
the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse
powerful mean past
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.
enemy lines way
All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.
dream regret elements
It is a sad day when one looks back and sees that his largest regrets have become some of the most integral elements of his dreams.
tree violence separate-peace
Nothing endures. Not a tree. Not love. Not even death by violence.
fighting land bridges
Life is fighting. In life, it's the look ahead that counts. We are all born equally far from the sun. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love.
mean years important
Looking back now across fifteen years I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.
wind sun necks
As I walked briskly out the road the wind knifed at my face, but this sun caressed the back of my neck.