Quotes from John Cheever

Percy must have perceived, early in her marriage, that her husband's lechery was compulsive and incurable, but she was determined, like any other lover, to authenticate her suspicion.

so visibly shaken by some recent loss of principle that it would have been noticed by a stranger across the aisle

It is unlikely that Percy would have written my mother after her return from Europe, and, had she written, the letter would have been destroyed, since that family had a crusading detestation of souvenirs. Letters, photographs, diplomas—anything that authenticated the past was always thrown into the fire.

Partiden eve döndüklerinde hava hâlâ yumuÅŸac?kt?, ?l?kt?, Irene gökteki bahar y?ld?zlar?na bakt?. Åžu küçük mum ta nereye yolluyor ???nlar?n?, diye hayk?rd?. Yararl? bir davran?? da böyle ???r iÅŸte yaramaz bir dünyada.

the Mackenzies regarded all this foolishness with the deepest respect, as if it had some genuine significance. They may have suffered from an indiscriminate sense of the past or from an inability to understand that the past plays no part in our happiness.

Artemis was the sort of man who frequently proposed marriage, but at thirty he still had no wife.

Now, the neighborhood of Maple Dell was more like a development than anything else in Shady Hill. It was the kind of place where the houses stand cheek by jowl, all of them white frame, all of them built twenty years ago, and parked beside each was a car that seemed more substantial than the house itself, as if this were a fragment of some nomadic culture.

Parece restregar y planchar con fervor penitencial, aunque no se me ocurre qué es lo que considera que ha hecho mal.

bulk of superstition that is supposed to attend good fortune, and when he wished for white shirts, it was not a genuinely modest wish so much as it was a memory—he could not have put it into words himself—that the gods of fortune are jealous and easily deceived by false modesty. He had never been a superstitious man, but on Tuesday he scooped the money off his coffee table and was elated when he saw a ladybug on the bathroom window sill.

Su un tram affollato a Roma all'ora di chiusura una sera d'inverno, qualcuno per sbaglio mi tocca la spalla. Non mi giro a guardare chi è e non saprò mai se è un uomo o una donna, una sgualdrina o un prete, ma quel tocco delicato scatena in me un tale desiderio di tenerezza e di cura che sospiro; mi sento cedere le ginocchia. Non è un sospiro profumato di violette né uno spasimo chopinesco: è qualcosa di rozzo e reale come i peli sulla mia pancia

La cosa più meravigliosa della vita sembra essere che alla fine usiamo solo una parte infinetisimale del nostro potenziale autodistruttivo. Magari lo desideriamo, magari è ciò che sogniamo, ma basta un raggio di luce, un cambio del vento per dissuaderci.

Forse è la vita chiusa che facciamo qui, e la noia in cui ci imbattiamo quando cerchiamo di variarla. Queste abitudini, questi giorni come vestiti vecchi. Ieri un giorno di luce brillante, di brillantezza acustica: il tintinnio di ruote di treni lontani sui binari risuonava netto. Dolori da sinusite. Ho portato Ben in macchina sulla collina a vedere il tramonto, il buio terso, le colline, le luci lontane, le nuvole tinte, il cielo color lavanda e limone.

O öÄŸleden sonra BeÅŸinci Cadde'den aÅŸa?? yürürken anlayamad???m ÅŸey; öylesine karanl?k görünen dünyan?n birkaç dakikada nas?l bu kadar güzel olabildiÄŸiydi.

Ä°nsan bir yerdeyken baÅŸka bir yerde olmak istiyorsa mesele gemiye binmekten ibaret deÄŸildir. Asl?nda baÅŸka bir ülkeyi özlemez. Kendi içinde var olmayan ya da bulmay? baÅŸaramad??? bir ÅŸeyin özlemini çeker.

Do you realize what that means? Do you know what that feels like? To live for fifteen years on promises and expectations and loans and credits in hotels that aren't fit to live in, never for a single day to be out of debt, and yet to pretend, to feel that every year, every winter, every job, every meeting is going to be the one. To live like this for fifteen years and then to realize that it's never going to end. Do you know what that feels like?

if you wanted to flush the toilet you had to lift the lid off the water tank, roll up a sleeve, and reach deep into the cold and rusty water to manipulate the valves.

maple. I wasn't going to get the old samurai sword out and chase him.

His right hand had been chopped off at the wrist by one of Mussolini's public executioners, and now that the old man's enemies were dead, he carried the stump proudly.

She fell into the chair he had left vacant. "Don't sit in your father's chair, Amy," her mother said, not realizing that Amy's legs were worn out from riding a bicycle, while her father had done nothing but sit down all day.

Hadi çocuklar, bana yard?m edin de ÅŸu hediyeleri toparlayal?m. Hadi çabuk, çabuk, dedi; o s?rada hava kararm??t? ve pansiyoncu kad?n da birbirimize sadece bir tek günlüÄŸüne azg?n bir cömertlikle baÄŸl? olduÄŸumuzu, o gününse bitmesine ramak kald???n? biliyordu.

Kimseyi beklemiyordum; etraf?mdaki kad?nlar da kocalar?n? bekliyorlard? sadece, ama bana hepimiz çok daha fazlas?n? bekliyormuÅŸuz gibi geliyordu.

Sabah soÄŸuk bir duÅŸ ald?, ama Mrs. Zagreb'in göÄŸsü sanki duÅŸ perdesinin arkas?nda onu bekliyordu. Arabayla istasyona giderken yana??na dayanm??t?, sekiz otuz üç treninde yol al?rken omzunun üstünden gazeteyi okuyordu, servis arac?nda, ÅŸehir merkezine giden metroda onunla birlikte hafiften sallan?yordu, iÅŸyerinde gün boyu kafas?ndan ç?kmad?. DelireceÄŸini san?yordu.

When he was young, brooks had seemed to speak to him in the tongues of men and angels. Now that he was an old man who spoke five or six languages - all of them poorly - the sound of water seemed to be the language of his nativity, some tongue he had spoken before his birth. Soft and loud, high and low, the sound of water reminded him of eavesdropping in some other room than where the party was.

And he recognized that he was separated only by a pane of glass from a life that was as strange to him as life on the moon.