The writer cultivates, extends, raises and inflates his imagination, sure that this is his destiny, his usefulness, his contribution to the understanding of good and evil. As he inflates his imagination he inflates his capacity for evil. John Cheever More Quotes by John Cheever More Quotes From John Cheever It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong. John Cheever splendidsummermorning Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood. Stand up straight. Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. John Cheever kniveshouseblood The constants that I look for are a love of light and a determination to trace some moral chain of being. John Cheever lightdeterminationlooks I love you not for the person you are, but for your possibilities. John Cheever possibilitycriticismlove-you The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable. John Cheever justicelovepeople Homesickness is . . . absolutely nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time. . . . You don't really long for another country. You long for something in yourself that you don't have, or haven't been able to find. John Cheever timelongcountry For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably. John Cheever intelligentrainmen Our country is the best country in the world. We are swimming in prosperity and our President is the best president in the world. We have larger apples and better cotton and faster and more beautiful machines. This makes us the greatest country in the world. Unemployment is a myth. Dissatisfaction is a fable. In preparatory school America is beautiful. It is the gem of the ocean and it is too bad. It is bad because people believe it all. Because they become indifferent. Because they marry and reproduce and vote and they know nothing. John Cheever beautifulbelievecountry I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be. John Cheever inspirationalcountrytravel A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind. John Cheever being-alonelonelyloneliness Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream. John Cheever dreamlyingart Art is the triumph over chaos. John Cheever chaostriumphart Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. John Cheever knivesfearworry If there is anybody I detest, it is weak-minded sentimentalists-all those melancholy people who, out of an excess of sympathy for others, miss the thrill of their own essence and drift through life without identity, like a human fog, feeling sorry for everyone. John Cheever fogessencesorry To disguise nothing, to conceal nothing, to write about those things that are closest to our pain, our happiness; to write about our sexual clumsiness, the agonies of Tantalus, the depth of our discouragement-what we glimpse in our dreams-our despair. To write about the foolish agonies of anxiety, the refreshment of our strength when these are ended; to write about our painful search for self, jeopardized by a stranger in the post office, a half-seen face in a train window, to write about the continents and populations of our dreams, about love and death, good and evil, the end of the world. John Cheever paindreamwriting Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world. John Cheever despairliteratureworld When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places. John Cheever leavingfamilyremember You can't expect to communicate with anyone if you're a bore. John Cheever borescommunicatespeech Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains. John Cheever kingsdarknight My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats. John Cheever cancercatmean
