I love you not for the person you are, but for your possibilities. John Cheever More Quotes by John Cheever More Quotes From John Cheever I write to make sense of my life." -John Cheever, quoted in _Cheever - A Life_ (2009) by Blake Bailey John Cheever blake make-sense writing She cried for herself, she cried because she was afraid that she herself might die in the night, because she was alone in the world, because her desperate and empty life was not an overture but an ending, and through it all she could see was the rough, brutal shape of a coffin. John Cheever empty-life coffins night I don't like to see all my energies, all of my youth, wasted in fur coats and radios and slipcovers. John Cheever fur coats energy Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos (no less) and we can accomplish this only by the most vigilant exercise of choice, but in a world that changes more swiftly that we can perceive there is always the danger that our powers of selection will be mistaken and that the vision we serve will come to nothing. John Cheever choices exercise art The poet or storyteller who feels that he is competing with a superb double play in the World Series is a lost man. One would not want as a reader a man who did not appreciate the finesse of a double play. John Cheever baseball play men I look up the telephone number of Alcoholics Anonymous. Then, my hands shaking, I open the bar and drink the leftover whiskey, gin and vermouth-whatever I can lay my shaking hands on. John Cheever bars numbers hands How can a people who do not mean to understand death hope to understand love, and who will sound the alarm? John Cheever alarms mean people ...the sounds next door served as a kind of trip wire: I seemed to stumble and fall on my face, skinning and bruising myself here and there and scattering my emotional and intellectual possessions. There was no point in pretending that I had not fallen, for when we are stretched out in the dirt we must pick ourselves up and brush off our clothes. This then, in a sense, is what I did, reviewing my considered opinions on marriage, constancy, man's nature, and the importance of love. When I had picked up my possessions and repaired my appearance, I fell asleep. John Cheever love men fall A page of good prose remains invincible. John Cheever prose invincible pages At my back I hear the word-"homosexual"-and it seems to split my world in two.... It is ignorance, our ignorance of one another, that creates this terrifying erotic chaos. Information, a crumb of information, seems to light the world. John Cheever light ignorance two Admite the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the lord. John Cheever trust-in-the-lord gentle world People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy. John Cheever confusion philosophy people When the beginnings of self destruction enter the heart, it seems no bigger than a grain of sand. John Cheever sand self heart For these are not as they might seem to be, the ruins of our civilization, but are temporary encampment and outposts of the civilization that we - you and I - shall build. John Cheever ruins might civilization Now working is terribly painful and I'm still having a fight with the booze. I've enlisted the help of a doctor but it's touch and go. A day for me; a day for the hootch. John Cheever doctors fighting helping Falsehood is a critical element in fiction. Part of the thrill of being told a story is the chance of being hoodwinked. . .The telling of lies is a sort of sleight of hand that displays our deepest feelings about life. John Cheever feelings lying hands Without a reader, I cannot write. It's like a kiss: they cannot be done alone. John Cheever kissing done writing Homesickness is nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time. John Cheever home people world That's the way I remember them, heading for an exit. John Cheever exit remember way The world that was not mine yesterday now lies spread out at my feet, a splendor. I seem, in the middle of the night, to have returned to the world of apples, the orchards of Heaven. Perhaps I should take my problems to a shrink, or perhaps I should enjoy the apples that I have, streaked with color like the evening sky. John Cheever sky night lying
