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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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John Knowles
Age: 75 †
Born: 1926
Born: September 16
Died: 2001
Died: November 29
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Fairmont
West Virginia
Else
Suspect
School
Suspects
Ever
Crucial
Life
Members
Almost
Class
Exeter
Anyone
Conceivably
Lives
Attended
More quotes by John Knowles
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
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
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
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
Sarcasm... the protest of those who are weak.
John Knowles
the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse
John Knowles
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
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
As I walked briskly out the road the wind knifed at my face, but this sun caressed the back of my neck.
John Knowles
I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.
John Knowles
But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.
John Knowles
The best teaching I ever experienced was at Exeter. Yale was a distinct letdown afterward.
John Knowles
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
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
It was demeaning to scrape affection from virtually everyone you encountered. That was immature.
John Knowles
Everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him.
John Knowles
Everything has to evolve or else it perishes.
John Knowles
So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all.
John Knowles
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
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
