John Cheever quotes - page 2

At my back I hear the word-”homosexual”-and it seems to split my world in two.... It is ignorance, our ignorance of one another, that creates this terrifying erotic chaos. Information, a crumb of information, seems to light the world. (John Cheever)
Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the lord. View quote
John Cheever
I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be. View quote
John Cheever
I'm wicked, as you say, and I'm rude and I'm boorish and I discovered, after marrying Mr Scaddon, that I could be all these things and worse and that there would still be plenty of people to lick my boots. View quote
John Cheever
It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong. View quote
John Cheever
When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places. View quote
John Cheever
Strange and predatory and truly dangerous, car thieves and muggers-they seem to jeopardize all our cherished concepts, even our self-esteem, our property rights, our powers of love, our laws and pleasures. The only relationship we seem to have with them is scorn or bewilderment, but they belong somewhere on the dark prairies of a country that is in the throes of self-discovery. View quote
John Cheever
When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places. That's the way I remember them, heading for an exit. View quote
John Cheever
.. for the dead fish was striped like a cat and the sky was striped like the fish and the conch was whorled like an ear and the beach was ribbed like a dog's mouth and the movables in the surf splintered and crashed like the walls of Jericho. View quote
John Cheever
He was a tall man with an astonishing and somehow elegant curvature of the spine, formed by an enlarged lower abdomen, which he carried in a stately and contented way, as if it contained money and securities. View quote
John Cheever
His religious requirements-that the service come from Cranmer's rites in the old prayer book, that it take 33 minutes or less, that the church be within 10 minutes' driving distance and that the altar be sufficiently simple so that it wouldn't remind him of a gift shop-limited his choice of parishes. (John Cheever)
People named John and Mary never divorce. For better or for worse, in madness and in saneness, they seem bound together for eternity by their rudimentary nomenclature. They may loathe and despise one another, quarrel, weep, and commit mayhem, but they are not free to divorce. Tom, Dick, and Harry can go to Reno on a whim, but nothing short of death can separate John and Mary. View quote
John Cheever
One would never have guessed that the world had such a capacity for genuine grief. The most we can do is exploit our memories of his excellence. View quote
John Cheever
Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction. View quote
John Cheever
Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. View quote
John Cheever
The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable. View quote
John Cheever
That's the way I remember them, heading for an exit. View quote
John Cheever
Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego. View quote
John Cheever
People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy. View quote
John Cheever
Novels are about men and women and children and dogs, not politics. View quote
John Cheever
A page of good prose remains invincible. (John Cheever)