Keep doing good deeds long enough, and you'll probably turn out a good man in spite of yourself. Louis Auchincloss More Quotes by Louis Auchincloss More Quotes From Louis Auchincloss To most readers the word 'fiction' is an utter fraud. They are entirely convinced that each character has an exact counterpart in real life and that any small discrepancy with that counterpart is a simple error on the author's part. Consequently, they are totally at a loss if anything essential is altered. Make Abraham Lincoln a dentist, put the Gettysburg Address on his tongue, and nobody will recognize it. Louis Auchincloss realwritingcharacter A man can spend his whole existence never learning the simple lesson that he has only one life and that if he fails to do what he wants with it, nobody else really cares. Louis Auchincloss lessonssimplemen I don't give a damn what people think. Louis Auchincloss givingpeoplethinking We were not as rich as the Rockefellers or Mellons, but we were rich enough to know how rich they were. Louis Auchincloss richknow-howenough In my day, they were not interested in making boys happy. Those schools were made for the types of men who would become quite successful. It was brutal. They are not brutal today. They are country clubs today. Louis Auchincloss successfulcountryschool A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger is always that he will not recognize when he is dull. Louis Auchincloss geniusdangerdull The only thing that keeps a man going is energy. And what is energy but liking life? Louis Auchincloss energymen There is a charm, even for homely things, in perfect maintenance. Louis Auchincloss maintenanceperfecthappiness Great lovers have made great sacrifices. Louis Auchincloss great-lovesacrificelovers Novels must have verisimilitude, and truth has little enough of that. Louis Auchincloss novelenoughlittles If you can sense the corruption in me, it is ... because there's a dose of it in you. Louis Auchincloss dosecorruptionifs Society matters not so much. Words are everything. Louis Auchincloss matter I grew up in the 1920s and 1930s in a nouveau riche world, where money was spent wildly, and I'm still living in one!... The private schools are all jammed with long waiting lists; the clubs -- all the old clubs -- are jammed with long waiting lists today; the harbors are clogged with yachts; there has never been a more material society than the one we live in today.... Where is this 'vanished world' they talk about? I don't think the critics have looked out the window! Louis Auchincloss longschoolthinking A common objection to inherited wealth is that it stifles the urge to work. I have not generally observed this to be true. Louis Auchincloss being-truewealthcommon Today is not forever. Louis Auchincloss forevertoday There's no real alternative to what there is. Louis Auchincloss alternativesreal Frederick Buechner can find grace and redemption even in the shoddiest, phoniest aspects of a cultural wasteland. One reads Lion Country...with hope and delight. Louis Auchincloss delightgracecountry Decent artists go through bad times but eventually they do get recognized. It's by no means a battle lost. Yet. Louis Auchincloss battleartistmean Maybe when I'm dead, I'll be forgiven, but I'm afraid I'll also be forgotten. Louis Auchincloss forgivenforgotten Great lecturers seldom hesitate to use dramatic tricks to enshrine their precepts in the minds of their audiences, and at Yale perhaps Chauncey B. Tinker was the most noted. To read one of his lectures was like reading a monologue of the great actress Ruth Draper--you missed the main point. You missed the drop in his voice as he approached the death in Rome of the tubercular Keats; you missed the shaking tone in which he described the poet's agony for the absent Fanny with him his love had never been consummated; you missed the grim silence of the end. Louis Auchincloss romereadingyale
