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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

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John Knowles
Age: 75 †
Born: 1926
Born: September 16
Died: 2001
Died: November 29
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Fairmont
West Virginia
Years
Looking
Undertakings
Fear
Intervals
Back
Succeeded
Must
Fifteen
Mean
Clarity
Important
Escape
Great
Across
Interval
Made
Lived
Undertaking

More quotes by John Knowles

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You have to do what you think is the right thing, but just make sure it’s the right thing in the long run, and not just for the moment.
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Everything has to evolve or else it perishes.
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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.
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Your war memories will be with you forever, you'll be asked about them thousands of times after the war is over. People will get their respect for you from that-partly from that, don't get me wrong-but if you can say that you were up front where there was some real shooting going on, then that will mean a whole lot to you in years to come.
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Nothing endures. Not a tree. Not love. Not even death by violence.
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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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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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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.
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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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Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him.
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Exeter was, I suspect, more crucial in my life than in the lives of most members of my class, and conceivably, than in the lives of almost anyone else who ever attended the school.
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.
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Sarcasm... the protest of those who are weak.
John Knowles