Quotes from John Fowles

We could not expect him to see what we are only just beginning--and with so much more knowledge and the lessons of existentialist philosophy at our disposal--to realise ourselves: that the desire to hold and the desire to enjoy are mutually destructive. His statement to himself should have been, I possess this now, therefore I am happy, instead of what it so Victorianly was: I cannot possess this forever, and therefore am sad.

I know what I am to him. A butterfly he has always wanted to catch. I remember (the very first time I met him) G.P. saying that collectors were the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. I didn't really understand, I thought he was just trying to shock Caroline - and me. But of course, he is right. They're anti-life, anti-art, anti-everything.

Again, I had no feeling of the supernatural, no belief that this was more than another nasty twist in the masque, a black inversion of the scene on the beach. That does not mean I was not frightened. I was, and very frightened; but my fear came from a knowledge that anything might happen. That there were no limits in this masque, no normal social laws or conventions.

The horrid old man Sinbad had to carry on his back. That's what you are. You get on the back of everything vital, everything trying to be honest and free, and you bear it down.

the great fallacies of our time is that the Nazis rose to power because they imposed order on chaos. Precisely the opposite is true—they were successful because they imposed chaos on order. They tore up the commandments, they denied the super-ego, what you will. They said, "You may persecute the minority, you may kill, you may torture, you may couple and breed without love." They offered humanity all its great temptations. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Her ÅŸeyi olduÄŸu gibi kabullenmek gerekiyordu. Ama evrim yasalar?n?n bu kadar büyük bir duyars?zl?kla, bu kadar büyük bir sakarl???n ayn? zihinde var olmas?na izin verdiÄŸi düÅŸüncesi beni ç?lg?na çeviriyordu. Egom kapana k?st?r?lm?? bir tavÅŸan gibi c?yak c?yak ba??r?yordu.

Limba german? se potrive?te cu moartea a?a cum limba latin? se potrive?te cu ritualul religios.

I hate what G.P. calls the New People, the new class people with their cars and their money and their tellies and their stupid vulgarities and their stupid crawling imitations of the bourgeoisie. (...) The New People are still the poor people, it is the new form of poverty. The others hadn't any money and these haven't any soul.

Jung deu um nome ao seu tipo de mulher. Um nome que não ajuda muito. A doença é bem pior do que o nome..." "Que nome é esse?", perguntei-lhe. "Não é costume dizer aos enfermos os nomes das suas doenças.

Only fools think our attitude to our fellow men is a thing distinct from our attitude to 'lesser' life.

daca am fi pasari, ne am inalta si am zbura, ne am pierde in albastru. Dar nu suntem pasari. - totusi, aripile ar putea sa ne creasca. - cum adica? - exista sentimente care ne inalta deasupra pamantului. N ai grija, o sa ai aripi!

In a happy world, there would be no art. I retreat too often into my imagination. In a happy world, the experience of reality would be enough.

Alison ma trezea din amorteala, dar Julie ma putea trezi din mormant.

Bir zaman insanlar kendi hazlar?n? yaratabileceÄŸine inan?yordu; ÅŸimdi onlar?n bedelini ödemesi gerektiÄŸine inan?yor. Sanki çiçekler art?k tarlalarda ve bahçelerde deÄŸil de; sadece çiçekçi dükkanlar?nda yetiÅŸiyormuÅŸ gibi.

He is mad. It is me. I am his madness. For years he's been looking for something to put his madness into. And he found me.

It was simple: one lived by irony and sentiment, one observed convention. What might have been was one more subject for detached and ironic observation; as was what might be. One surrendered, in other words; one learnt to be what one was.

Time is the flesh and blood of death; death is not a skull, a skeleton, but a clock face, a sun hurtling through a sea of thin gas. A part of you has died since you began to read this sentence.

These question-boundaries ...are ours, not of reality. We are led to them, caged by them not only culturally and intellectually, but quite physically, by the restlessness of our eyes and their limited field and acuity of vision.

No es el poco saber lo que genera necesariamente la ignorancia: saber demasiado, o querer saber demasiado, puede producir el mismo resultado.

Nos falta confianza en el presente, en el momento actual, en la visión efectiva, porque nuestra cultura nos dice que debemos confiar solo en lo que se ha conseguido y explicado en el pasado, en lo que se ha formulado de forma pública, lo que se ha editado, lo que se ha expuesto siguiendo los parámetros de una perspectiva claramente artística o claramente científica.

Sau dac? cel puÈ›in aÈ™ fi evocat amintirea unui reproÈ™, ar fi fost mai bine decât aceast? înmormântare absolut?, aceast? minciun? neomeneasc?, tic?loas?, stuid?, c? trecutul nostru nu ar fi în acelaÈ™i timp prezentul nostru, c? ceea ce am f?cut sau am simÈ›it atunci a fost într-un fel r?u È™i absurd...imatur.

hay tiempos que el lenguaje humano aún debe inventar.

Evolution had turned man into a sharply isolating creature, seeing the world not only anthropocentrically but singly, mirroring the way we like to think of our private selves.

Nothing is real. All is fiction. Somewhere there's someone writing us, we're not real. He or she decides who we are, what we do, all about us.