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John Fowles

John Fowles Quotes

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Famous John Fowles Quotes

“Even more ominous ... is the fact that since the Second World War a new kind of intellectual has emerged in large numbers. ... he is only minimally interested in the proper intellectual significance of images and objects. Such people are not really intellectuals, but visuals ... A visual is more interested in style than in content ... A visual does not feel a rioting crowd being machine-gunned by the police, he simply sees a brilliant news photograph.”

PeopleWorldFeelsKindDoeWarFactsNumbersStyleObjectsNewsIntellectualMachinesPolicePhotographCrowdsBrilliantWar Of The WorldsVisualsSignificanceLarge NumbersSecond World WarOminousRioting
Author:John Fowles
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“These last few days I've felt Godless. I've felt cleaner, less muddled, less blind. I still believe in a God. But he's so remote, so cold, so mathematical. I see that we have to live as if there is no God. Prayer and worship and singing hymns-all silly and useless.”

IfsBelieveStillsGodLastsFeltReligiousPrayerColdWorshipSingingBlindSillyMathematicalUselessThere Is No GodPraying To GodHymnsCleanersI Still BelieveGod Prayer
Book:The Collector
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“Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.”

KnowsWorldRealReasonCharacterWishPlansEventsMachinesIndependentCreatorPlanningOrganisms
Book:THE FRENCH LIEUTENTANT'S WOMAN
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“Medieval theologians used to dispute how the angels in the heaven spent their time, when not balancing on needle points and singing anthems to the Lord. I know. They slump glued to their clouds, glasses at the ready, as the Archangel Micheal (that well-known slasher) and stonewalling St Peter open against the Devils XI. It could not be Heaven, otherwise.”

KnowsWellsUsedHeavenKnownLordReadySingingDevilAngelCloudsGlassesPeterWell KnownTheologianDisputesMedievalNeedlesAnthemArchangelSlumpsSt Peter
Author:John Fowles
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“It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world. It's despair that perfectly normal young men can be made vicious and evil because they've won a lot of money. And then do what you've done to me.”

MenWorldLifeShouldMadeIdeasReasonDoneFeelingsCareYoungEvilDespairNormalYoung ManBombsContemplatingLots Of MoneyViciousDroppingBrutalityPerfectly NormalCallousness
Author:John Fowles
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“One of 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.”

LoveMaySaidTimeHumanityOrderPowerSuccessfulCoupleEgoOppositesRoseChaosKillingTemptationOur TimeTortureBeing SuccessfulMinoritiesPermitDeniedOfferingCommandmentsNaziThey SaidPersecutionKey To SuccessRoad To SuccessWithout LoveBreedingFallacyImposing
Book:The Magus
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“The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves.”

PeopleMadeHandsFacesHouseSpeakWaitingPoorTreeSkyFoolSeasonsForgivingSilentSmellFleshFlightBurningLakesAutumnBuriedFrozenFragmentsTenseHazardsSuspendedPigeonsNever ForgivePresent TenseBlackbirdsAnagrams
Author:John Fowles
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