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Nothing endures. Not a tree. Not love. Not even death by violence.

John Knowles

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John Knowles
Age: 75 †
Born: 1926
Born: September 16
Died: 2001
Died: November 29
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Fairmont
West Virginia
Even
Love
Endures
Endure
Tree
Violence
Death
Nothing

More quotes by John Knowles

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As I said, this was my sarcastic summer. It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak.
John Knowles
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Stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging elsewhere, we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men.
John Knowles
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There are simply more young people than there ever were. You get this feeling of strength. Also, large numbers can be a drawback, making it difficult to lose one's anonymity.
John Knowles
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What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.
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All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all if he was indeed the enemy.
John Knowles
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As I walked briskly out the road the wind knifed at my face, but this sun caressed the back of my neck.
John Knowles
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Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him.
John Knowles
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Sarcasm... the protest of those who are weak.
John Knowles
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It is a sad day when one looks back and sees that his largest regrets have become some of the most integral elements of his dreams.
John Knowles
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So the more things remained the same, the more they changed after all. Nothing endures. Not love, not a tree, not even a death by violence.
John Knowles
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The best teaching I ever experienced was at Exeter. Yale was a distinct letdown afterward.
John Knowles
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I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.
John Knowles
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It was demeaning to scrape affection from virtually everyone you encountered. That was immature.
John Knowles
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But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.
John Knowles
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Everything has to evolve or else it perishes.
John Knowles
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The next major advance in the health of the American people will be determined by what the individual is willing to do for himself.
John Knowles
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I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of night before, that sleep suspended all but changed nothing, that you couldn’t make yourself over between dawn and dusk.
John Knowles
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Never say you are five feet nine when you are five feet eight and a half was the first one I encountered. Another was, Always say some prayers at night because it might turn out that there is a God.
John Knowles
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But I was used to finding something deadly in things that attracted me there was always something deadly lurking in anything I wanted, anything I loved.
John Knowles
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I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.
John Knowles