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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

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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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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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I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.
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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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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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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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the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse
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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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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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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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Everything has to evolve or else it perishes.
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So the more things remain the same, the more they change after all.
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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.
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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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It was demeaning to scrape affection from virtually everyone you encountered. That was immature.
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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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The best teaching I ever experienced was at Exeter. Yale was a distinct letdown afterward.
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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.
John Knowles