Quote

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

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
Nothing
Heroic
Converging
Whole
Elsewhere
Stranded
Children
Town
Railroad
Men
Towns
Mill
World
Seemed
Railroads
Among
Mills
Playing
Yard
Peace
Yards

More quotes by John Knowles

Image
So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all.
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
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
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.
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
the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse
John Knowles
Image
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.
John Knowles
Image
Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him.
John Knowles
Image
It was demeaning to scrape affection from virtually everyone you encountered. That was immature.
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
I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.
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
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.
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
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
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
Image
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
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
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