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My hatred of crowds, the obviousness of crowds, of anything en masse. Is this why I like little-known books? A general desire to escape the main world.

John Fowles

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John Fowles
Age: 79 †
Born: 1926
Born: March 31
Died: 2005
Died: November 5
Essayist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Teacher
Writer
Leigh-on-Sea
Essex
Desire
Masse
Littles
Crowds
Anything
Escape
Little
Main
Book
Hatred
Like
General
World
Books
Known
Obviousness

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I knew I would always want to go on living with myself, however hollow I became, however diseased.
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The American myth is of free will in its simple, primary sense. One can choose oneself and will oneself and this absurdly optimistic assumption so dominates the republic that it has bred all its gross social injustices.
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He is solid immovable, iron-willed. He showed me one day his killing bottle. I'm imprisoned in it. Fluttering against the glass. Because I can see through it I still think I can escape. I have hope. But it's all an illusion. A thick round wall of glass.
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I am going to explain to you why we went to war. Why mankind always goes to war. It is not social or political. It is not countries that go to war, but men. It is like salt. Once one has been to war, one has salt for the rest of one's life. Do you understand?
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There are only two races on this planet - the intelligent and the stupid.
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Between skin and skin, there is only light.
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Follow the accident, fear the fixed plan--that is the rule.
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There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be.
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I do not plan my fiction any more than I normally plan woodland walks I follow the path that seems most promising at any given point, not some itinerary decided before entry.
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I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive. but it's the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead.
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Art's cruel. You can get away with murder with words. But a picture is like a window straight through to your inmost heart.
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Science disembodies art embodies.
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Adulthood is not an age, but a stage of knowledge of self.
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The power of women! I've never felt so full of mysterious power. Men are a joke. We're so weak physically, so helpless with things. Still, even today. But we're stronger than they are. We can stand their cruelty. They can't stand ours.
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If you want to be true to life, start lying about it
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We talked for hours. He talked and I listened. It was like wind and sunlight. It blew all the cobwebs away.
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Love is the mystery between two people, not the identity.
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Wolves don't hunt singly, but always in pairs. The lone wolf was a myth.
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You come to the United States not knowing what to expect. Then all your worst prejudices are confirmed.
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I knew words were like chains, they held me back . . . the act of description taints the description.
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