Quote

I have to confess that I have so rarely experienced triumph that I cannot claim to know it well enough to judge, but it seems to be at best a momentary joy followed instantly by sadness, and, then, of necessity, by wariness.

Mark Helprin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mark Helprin
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: June 28
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
New York City
New York
Best
Triumph
Momentary
Wells
Sadness
Instantly
Well
Judge
Confess
Enough
Claims
Followed
Judging
Experienced
Joy
Necessity
Cannot
Rarely
Seems
Claim

More quotes by Mark Helprin

Image
If it weren't for music, I would think that love is mortal.
Mark Helprin
Image
What I really like to do is to sit quietly and write. All that other stuff is a problem. Publication to reception to negotiation to... everything, it's a problem. And I like to sit outside for long periods of time and just be in the tranquility of nature. That's what I like.
Mark Helprin
Image
[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy...Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.
Mark Helprin
Image
The human race is intoxicated with narrow victories, for life is a string of them like pearls that hit the floor when the rope breaks, and roll away in perfection and anarchy.
Mark Helprin
Image
Accident is as much a part of fiction as anything else, symbolic of the grace that, along with will, conspires to put words on the page.
Mark Helprin
Image
World War II is the war that made our world. There's no question about that. The history of all the years in which I will spend my life, every single one, that is the seminal event of the history that we will experience.
Mark Helprin
Image
That's what the left is always doing. They have an ideal, and they want people to conform to it. When people don't conform to it, they end up being beaten into the mold. And beaten sometimes hard enough so that if they don't fit, then they kill them. That's what happened in the Soviet Union and China.
Mark Helprin
Image
When faced with something I fear, I tend to eat spaghetti.
Mark Helprin
Image
Peter Lake had no illusions about mortality. He knew that it made everyone perfectly equal, and that the treasures of the earth were movement, courage, laughter, and love. The wealthy could not buy these things. On the contrary, they were for the taking.
Mark Helprin
Image
It's a defining difference, curiosity. I've never known a stupid person who was curious, or a curious person who was stupid.
Mark Helprin
Image
Heavy blizzards start as a gentle and persistent snow.
Mark Helprin
Image
And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.
Mark Helprin
Image
La guerre, la guerre, everything la guerre. That's how I grew up. So for me, it's real. It's not something in the past.
Mark Helprin
Image
No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile.
Mark Helprin
Image
I believe that Israel is very likely not to survive, it's not going to last forever, and now there's nothing that someone like me can do about it, in that it's a threat of nuclear or biological or chemical attack.
Mark Helprin
Image
To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been.
Mark Helprin
Image
The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.
Mark Helprin
Image
Because there were all kinds of hell - some were black and dirty, and some were silvery and high.
Mark Helprin
Image
Whatever I do I've always done not because I want something but to compensate for a loss, to bring about a balance, to create amends, to make things right.
Mark Helprin
Image
When you die, you know, you hear the insistent pounding that defines all things, whether of matter or energy, since there is nothing in the universe, really, but proportion.
Mark Helprin