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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.

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
Levels
Developed
Enemy
Killed
War
Intense
School
Active
Ever
Hatred
Never
Anybody
Uniform
Time
Level
Uniforms
Duty
Ended

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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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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.
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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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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.
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the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse
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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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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.
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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.
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So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all.
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Nothing endures. Not a tree. Not love. Not even death by violence.
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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.
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The best teaching I ever experienced was at Exeter. Yale was a distinct letdown afterward.
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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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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.
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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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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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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.
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Everything has to evolve or else it perishes.
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