Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Knowles
Age: 75 †
Born: 1926
Born: September 16
Died: 2001
Died: November 29
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Fairmont
West Virginia
Dream
Become
Integral
Back
Regrets
Looks
Largest
Sees
Regret
Elements
Dreams

More quotes by John Knowles

Image
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
Image
As I walked briskly out the road the wind knifed at my face, but this sun caressed the back of my neck.
John Knowles
Image
My father was in the coal business in West Virginia. Both dad and mother were, however, originally from Massachusetts New England, to them, meant the place to go if you really wanted an education.
John Knowles
Image
The best teaching I ever experienced was at Exeter. Yale was a distinct letdown afterward.
John Knowles
Image
Everything has to evolve or else it perishes.
John Knowles
Image
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
Image
I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform I was on active duty all my time at school I killed my enemy there.
John Knowles
Image
Looking back now across fifteen years I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.
John Knowles
Image
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
Image
I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.
John Knowles
Image
the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse
John Knowles
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It was demeaning to scrape affection from virtually everyone you encountered. That was immature.
John Knowles
Image
Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him.
John Knowles
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Nothing endures. Not a tree. Not love. Not even death by violence.
John Knowles
Image
But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.
John Knowles