Quotes from John Jakes

Human beings may be inconsistent, but human nature is true to itself

We are all dying of life.

The house burned an hour before midnight on the last day of April. The wild, distant ringing of the fire bells woke George Hazard. He stumbled through the dark hallway, then upstairs to the mansion tower, and stepped outside into the narrow balcony.

The pain comes from knowing that we have never been safe, and therefore will never be safe again. It comes from knowing we can never be so ignorant again. It comes from knowing we can never be children again. Losing innocence. Remembering heaven. That was the essence of hell.

I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first Jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today's world. Libraries are everyman's free university.

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.

We are all dying of life.

The pain comes from more than the facts of circumstance, or the deeds of others. It comes from within. From understanding what we lost. It comes from knowing how foolish we were - vain, arrogant children - when we thought ourselves happy. It comes from knowing how fragile and doomed the old ways were, just when we thought them and ourselves, secure!. The pain comes from knowing we have never been safe, and therefore will never be safe again. It comes from knowing we can never be children again.

Losing innocence. Remembering Heaven. That was the essence of Hell

Take a stand and make a mark.

That was an explanation, not an excuse.

I don't know if there is any place on this earth that I belong.

Human beings may be inconsistent, but human nature is true to itself

Perhaps—the insight came suddenly—perhaps love existed in its truest, deepest form when one partner saw into the soul of the other and never shrank from what was discovered there.

It is too late. I love him. I know it may bring me grief, and I can't do a thing about it. Mr. Congreve was right about love being a frailty of the mind.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

Guilty she might be. But what human being was not? There were things in her past she needn't be ashamed of, things to be proud of; she wouldn't surrender so meekly to a condemning judgment.

He could never be anything more than what he was: the inheritor of weakness and unbridled emotion, a creature possessed by the past, and carrying its curse forever into the future--

This country's drifting into serious trouble because of the clamor for simple and immediate solutions to complex problems that will take years to solve—even with total effort on both sides.

They had thought him such a 'good' man. They should have learned it was dangerous to trust appearances or take strangers at their word in this shit-hole world.

Neither of you ever let fear put chains on your conscience.

The race is to the driven, not the swift.

Remember, men. it is better to wound than to slay, since it takes time to carry an injured man to the rear and sometimes requires two of the enemy rather than one.

The best that could be left behind by any man: children who had been brought up to behave responsibly and to believe in something beyond their own self gratification. (The Americans