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
dream target harm
There was no harm in taking aim, even if the target was a dream.
memories real war
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.
morning hate joy
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.
knows
I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.
prayer night feet
Never say you are five feet nine when you are five feet eight and a half" was the first one I encountered. Another was, "Always say some prayers at night because it might turn out that there is a God.
acceptance people understanding
There are special, strange gifted people in the world and they have to be treated with understanding
parent sometimes accepting
I knew that part of friendship consisted in accepting a friend’s shortcomings, which sometimes included his parents.
war school hatred
I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.
summer exeter
The summer of 1943 at Exeter was as happy a time as I ever had in my life.
school class members
Exeter was, I suspect, more crucial in my life than in the lives of most members of my class, and conceivably, than in the lives of almost anyone else who ever attended the school.
teaching yale letdowns
The best teaching I ever experienced was at Exeter. Yale was a distinct letdown afterward.
sick people generations
Young people in my generation were sort of in lockstep, and it wasn't just the '40s, either. In the '30s and in the '50s it was the same. No one ever dropped out unless he got sick or got kicked out.
mother dad father
My father was in the coal business in West Virginia. Both dad and mother were, however, originally from Massachusetts; New England, to them, meant the place to go if you really wanted an education.
numbers people feelings
There are simply more young people than there ever were. You get this feeling of strength. Also, large numbers can be a drawback, making it difficult to lose one's anonymity.