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John Edward Williams

John Edward Williams Biography

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“that is the very. best time of life, he thought: lost time. the time of summer when the leaves of the trees are tangled in the iridescent sunlight. he thought always of his childhood as an uninterrupted summertime when lazy happiness dulled and delighted his brain and limb. to remember the summer and the run through tall grasses. the sun bathed his arms and legs an earthy brown and he was perfect and unaware and this is how it was in the afternoon: the house was white and high and remote upon the hill and the graveled drive was like a pebbly ribbon that had been dropped carelessly on the lawn, the drive upon which he. had run and the garden beside it where he had lain to crush the fragrant flowers. and far away, yet not too far, the cool sound of the running stream. grasses grew beside the stream and at a certain spot, a certain secret hidden spot, the foliage was pushed away, pressed into a narrow length, not so narrow as a grave, not so narrow that. one should lie alone. and together on the general summer day that was his childhood, awed and silent, they had listened to the whisper of the cool water, they had basked in the sunlight, his tousled head upon her breast, his eager small body in the crook of her moist arm. they had breathed together quietly, reverently, both aware of the earth's breathing. and turning sleepily, warmly on the earth, his lost voice asking, 'mother, where does the water run?' and the answering miracle, ' to the sea, down to the sea...”

Nothing But The Night
Author:John Edward Williams
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“In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart.”

IfsKnowsHumansHeartStatesMomentsMightAgeHeavenSawsGraceMiddleConditionsYouthOughtBecomingLuckyIllusionDecidedAbsolutesExtremesAccessNostalgiaFamiliarMaturityContemptEmbarrassedMiddle AgesDisbeliefAmusedStoners
Author:John Edward Williams
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“The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.”

IfsLoveMindFirstsHeartAgeLiteratureLanguageMysteryMinutesDangerousStrangeLettersCombinationUnexpectedPrintDisplayHeart And Mind
Book:Stoner: A Novel
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“It seems to me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend his energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. I implore you, do not become a moralist; you will destroy your art and your mind.”

WorldMindArtReasonSeemsEnergyEasyDifficultVisionIgnorancePrideCreaturesJudgmentUselessMoralistGaining Knowledge
Author:John Edward Williams
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