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A man can spend his whole existence never learning the simple lesson that he has only one life and that if he fails to do what he wants with it, nobody else really cares.

Louis Auchincloss

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Louis Auchincloss
Age: 92 †
Born: 1917
Born: September 27
Died: 2010
Died: January 26
Historian
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Lawrence
Nassau County
New York
Louis S. Auchincloss
Louis Stanton Auchincloss
Andrew Lee
Men
Learning
Fails
Life
Existence
Cares
Simple
Lesson
Else
Lessons
Care
Failing
Whole
Spend
Really
Nobody
Never
Wants

More quotes by Louis Auchincloss

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It seems to me that the arts are rather flourishing. There's an awful lot of bad art about because of this, but that's true of every great era. I'm sure there was a lot dreadful art in the Renaissance that we fortunately don't see today.
Louis Auchincloss
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Buechner is a worthy member of the great prose stylists: Pascal, Newman, and Merton, who have harnessed their art to a passionate religious faith.
Louis Auchincloss
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Keep doing good deeds long enough, and you'll probably turn out a good man in spite of yourself.
Louis Auchincloss
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Decent artists go through bad times but eventually they do get recognized. It's by no means a battle lost. Yet.
Louis Auchincloss
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Today is not forever.
Louis Auchincloss
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We were not as rich as the Rockefellers or Mellons, but we were rich enough to know how rich they were.
Louis Auchincloss
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Novels must have verisimilitude, and truth has little enough of that.
Louis Auchincloss
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Your literary style reflects your personality.
Louis Auchincloss
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I couldn't bear to see a chapter of the gospel turned into a chapter of Trollope.
Louis Auchincloss
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It's very rare that a character comes to mind complete in himself. He needs additional traits that I often pick from actual people. One way you can cover your tracks is to change the sex.
Louis Auchincloss
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I don't give a damn what people think.
Louis Auchincloss
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Once somebody's aware of a plot, it's like a bone sticking out. If it breaks through the skin, it's very ugly.
Louis Auchincloss
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There is a charm, even for homely things, in perfect maintenance.
Louis Auchincloss
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Not the least of the hardships to which the dying are subject is the visitation of their loved ones. The poor darlings, God bless them, may feel every impulse to condole and console, but their primary sensation is nonetheless one of embarrassment in the presence of the unspeakable and a guilty gratitude that it is not yet their fate.
Louis Auchincloss
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Society matters not so much. Words are everything.
Louis Auchincloss
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Only little boys and old men sneer at love.
Louis Auchincloss
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A lot of writers ... sit in a log cabin by the lake and put their feet up by the fire in the silence and write. If you can have that that's all very well, but the true writer will learn to write anywhere -- even in prison.
Louis Auchincloss
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Great lovers have made great sacrifices.
Louis Auchincloss
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There's no real alternative to what there is.
Louis Auchincloss