Quotessence
Home / Authors / Tobias Wolff Books
Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff Books

Author

Old School

A source page for quotes linked to Tobias Wolff.

0 quotes

This boy's life

A source page for quotes linked to Tobias Wolff.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“In the very act of writing I felt pleased with what I did. There was the pleasure of having words come to me, and the pleasure of ordering them, re-ordering them, weighing one against another. Pleasure also in the imagination of the story, the feeling that it could mean something. Mostly I was glad to find out that I could write at all. In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.”

WritingInspirationMotivation
Book:In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War
Create image

“He still had his tie on, a knitted tie with a flat bottom. It looked crocheted; it looked like a doily. Our biology master wore ties like that but George was the only boy you'd catch dead in one. He was both the oldest and youngest of us, the most fuddy-duddy and innocent, and I could see that his innocence extended to this question of sardonic intent. His poem, alas, was perfectly serious.”

Private SchoolMixed RaceCrochetAmerican ExperienceVintage Fashion
Book:Old School
Create image

“Why were Jack and his brother digging post holes? A fence there would run parallel to the one that already enclosed the farmyard. The Welches had no animals to keep in or out - a fence there could serve no purpose. Their work was pointless. Years later, while I was waiting for a boat to take me across the river, I watched two Vietnamese women methodically hitting a discarded truck tire with sticks. They did it for a good long while, and were still doing it when I crossed the river. They were part of the dream from which I recognized the Welches, my defeat-dream, my damnation-dream, with its solemn choreography of earnest useless acts.”

MeaningIrrelevantUselessness
Book:This boy's life
Create image

“Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.”

EndsPainKnowingImagineEndlessPassingInnocentPassingsConsolationComing To An End
Book:This Boy's Life: A Memoir
Create image

“When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever”

PeopleWorldBelieveStillsDreamFallInterestBornHalfForeverRightsSpecialDyingGreenInnocentArrangementsOur DreamsAssuranceMonstrousQuitter
Book:This boy's life
Create image

“I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is "depressing" because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that don't seem to know these things go on, or hide them in resolute chipperness; "witty stories," in which every problem is the occasion for a joke; "upbeat" stories that flog you with transcendence. Please. We're grown ups now.”

KnowsMatterStoriesProblemSeemsAbleSubjectsGoes OnPleaseJokesWittyOccasionsDepressingComplaintsTranscendenceSubject MatterResoluteUpbeat
Author:Tobias Wolff
Create image

“You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home.”

KnowsHomeLightTurnsGrowsCan DoRoomsBoysWindowPlantInstinctAspirationCracksAspire
Author:Tobias Wolff
Create image

“We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must make it and you must make it well. Or: Today is the day of the meatloaf. The meatloaf is swell. It is swell but when it is gone the not-having meatloaf will be tragic and the meatloaf man will not come anymore.”

IfsMenWellsCharacterTodayGoneBedDenyTragicDiscipleshipTravestyToday Is The DayMeatloaf
Book:Old School
Create image

“The very act of writing assumes, to begin with, that someone cares to hear what you have to say. It assumes that people share, that people can be reached, that people can be touched and even in some cases changed. So many of the things in our world lead us to despair. It seems to me that the final symptom of despair is silence, and that storytelling is one of the sustaining arts; it’s one of the affirming arts. A writer may have a certain pessimism in his outlook, but the very act of being a writer seems to me to be an optimistic act.”

PeopleWorldWritingMayArtSeemsCareCertainSilenceCasesShareChangedDespairAssumingFinalsStorytellingOptimisticTouchedOur WorldPessimismSymptomsOutlookSustainingAffirming
Author:Tobias Wolff
Create image