All novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one. John Fowles More Quotes by John Fowles More Quotes From John Fowles The battle was over. Our casualties were some thirteen thousand killed--thirteen thousand minds, memories, loves, sensations, worlds, universes--because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself--and all for a few hundred yards of useless mud. John Fowles lovememorieswar It's like the day you realize dolls are dolls. I pick up my old self and I see it's silly. A toy I've played with too often. It's a little sad, like an old golliwog at the bottom of the cupboard. Innocent and used-up and proud and silly. John Fowles dollsselfsilly We lay on the ground and kissed. Perhaps you smile. That we only lay on the ground and kissed. You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not. But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion. It is not only species of animal that die out. But whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know. But pity yourself for what it did. John Fowles wiseanimalpast People who teach you cram old ideas, old views, old ways, into you. Like covering plants with layer after layer of old earth; it's no wonder the poor things so rarely come up fresh and green. John Fowles viewspeopleideas If you want to be true to life, start lying about it John Fowles true-lifewantlying I don't think the English like me. I sold a colossal best seller in America, and they never really forgave me. John Fowles like-meamericathinking I suppose I'd had, by the standards of that pre-permissive time, a good deal of sex for my age. Girls, or a certain kind of girl, liked me; I had a car-not so common among undergraduates in those days-and I had some money. I wasn't ugly; and even more important, I had my loneliness, which, as every cad knows, is a deadly weapon with women. My 'technique' was to make a show of unpredictability, cynicism, and indifference. Then, like a conjurer with his white rabbit, I produced the solitary heart. John Fowles girllonelinesssex She's always looking for poetry and passion and sensitivity, the whole Romantic kitchen. I live on a rather simpler diet.' 'Prose and pudding?''I don't expect attractive men necessarily to have attractive souls. John Fowles passionsoulmen The newspapers are full of what we would like to happen to us and what we hope will never happen to us. John Fowles newspapershopehappens The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night? John Fowles risklastsnight Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn.' To live alone?' To live. With what you are. John Fowles greecemirrorssuffering Between skin and skin, there is only light. John Fowles skinslight It is not only species of animal that die out, but whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know, but pity yourself for what it did. John Fowles wiseanimalpast That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good. John Fowles tragedyevilmen Piers is always going on about how he hated Stowe. As if that solves everything, as if to hate something means it can't have affected you. John Fowles piershatemean He knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him, his imagination was always ready to fill the gap. John Fowles intelligentimaginationmemories Ask me to marry you." "Will you marry me?" "No. John Fowles will-you-marry-memarry-meask-me The moon hung over the planet Earth, a dead thing over a dying thing. John Fowles dyingmoonearth That's the trouble with provincial life. Everyone knows everyone and there is no mystery. No romance. John Fowles romancemysterytrouble Think. In a minute from now you could be saying, I risked death. I threw for life, and I won life. It is a very wonderful feeling. To have survived. John Fowles feelingswonderfulthinking
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