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Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

Walker Percy

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Walker Percy
Age: 73 †
Born: 1916
Born: May 28
Died: 1990
Died: May 10
Author
Novelist
Philosopher
Physician
Writer
Birmingham
Alabama
Onto
Despair
Something

More quotes by Walker Percy

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Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past.
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To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something.
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A good title should be like a good metaphor. It should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious.
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It is not merely the truth of science that makes it beautiful, but its simplicity.
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Life is fits and starts, mostly fits.
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It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh.
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Boredom is the self being stuffed with itself.
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Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.
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Why is there such a gap between nonspeaking animals and speaking man, when there is no other such gap in nature?
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I had discovered that a person does not have to be this or be that or be anything, not even oneself. One is free.
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Lord, grant that my work increase knowledge and help other men. Failing that, Lord, grant that it will not lead to man’s destruction. Failing that, Lord, grant that my article in Brain be published before the destruction takes place.
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Peace is only better than war when it's not hell too. War being hell makes sense.
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Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?
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Home may be where the heart is but it's no place to spend Wednesday afternoon.
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The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
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Being uneducated is no guarantee against being obnoxious.
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It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal.
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I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?
Walker Percy
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Why is it that no other species but man gets bored? Under the circumstances in which a man gets bored, a dog goes to sleep.
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I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.
Walker Percy