John Fowles Quotes

Wolves don't hunt singly, but always in pairs. The lone wolf was a myth.

...all cynicism masks a failure to cope.

He's not human; he's an empty space disguised as a human.

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, therefore I am sad.

We lay on the ground and kissed. Perhaps you smile. That we only lay on the ground and kissed. You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we could not. But remember that you have paid a price: that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion. It is not only species of animal that die out. But whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know. But pity yourself for what it did.

There are many reasons why novelists write but they all have one thing in common a need to create an alternative world.

I mean I never feel I feel what I ought to feel.

What you love is your own love. It's not love, it's selfishness. It's not me you think of, but what you feel about me.

The power of women! I've never felt so full of mysterious power. Men are a joke.

You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts.

Yet this distance, all those abysses unbridged and then unbridgeable by radio, television, cheap travel and the rest, was not wholly bad. People knew less of each other, perhaps, but they felt more free of each other, and so were more individual. The entire world was not for them only a push or a switch away. Strangers were strange, and sometimes with an exciting, beautiful strangeness. It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more. But I am a heretic, I think our ancestors' isolation was like the greater space they enjoyed: it can only be envied. The world is only too literally too much with us now.

"You're not me. You can't feel like I feel."
"I can feel."
"No you can't. You just choose not to feel or something and everything's fine."
"It's not fine. It's just not so bad."

People who teach you cram old ideas, old views, old ways, into you. Like covering plants with layer after layer of old earth; it's no wonder the poor things so rarely come up fresh and green.

I was too green to know that all cynicism masks a failure to cope - an impotence, in short; and that to despise all effort is the greatest effort of all.

The best wines take the longest to mature.