Walker Percy Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Bourbon does for me what the piece of cake did for Proust.

  Walker Percy

  Cake, Alcohol, Pieces

  Walker Percy (2011). “Signposts in a Strange Land”, p.59, Open Road Media

  68 Copy quote

• There is no pain on this earth like seeing the same woman look at another man the way she once looked at you.

  Walker Percy

  Pain, Men, Looks

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lancelot”, p.53, Open Road Media

  12 Copy quote

• I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see.

  Walker Percy

  Men, People, Dawn

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.35, Open Road Media

  22 Copy quote

• My mother refused to let me fail. So I insisted.

  Walker Percy

  Mother, Failing, Adolescence

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Second Coming”, p.66, Open Road Media

  12 Copy quote

• The difference between a non-suicide and an ex-suicide leaving the house for work, at eight o'clock on an ordinary morning: The non-suicide is a little traveling suck of care, sucking care with him from the past and being sucked toward care in the future. His breath is high in his chest. The ex-suicide opens his front door, sits down on the steps, and laughs. Since he has the option of being dead, he has nothing to lose by being alive. It is good to be alive. He goes to work because he doesn't have to.

  Walker Percy

  Suicide, Morning, Past

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book”, p.53, Open Road Media

  29 Copy quote

• Boredom is the self being stuffed with itself.

  Walker Percy

  Blessing, Self, Boredom

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book”, p.39, Open Road Media

  17 Copy quote

• Suppose you ask God for a miracle and God says yes, very well. How do you live the rest of your life?

  Walker Percy

  Miracle, Rest Of Your Life, Wells

  Walker Percy (2011). “Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World”, p.196, Open Road Media

  17 Copy quote

• It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh.

  Walker Percy

  Kissing, Car, Littles

  Walker Percy (1988). “The moviegoer”

  4 Copy quote

• The conviction: I will not tolerate this age. The freedom: the freedom to act on my conviction. And I will act. No one else has both the conviction and the freedom. Many agree with me, have the conviction, but will not act. Some act, assassinate, bomb, burn, etc., but they are the crazies. Crazy acts by crazy people. But what if one, sober, reasonable, and honorable man should act, and act with perfect sobriety, reason, and honor? Then you have the beginning of a new age. We shall start a new order of things.

  Walker Percy

  Crazy, Men, Order

  Walker Percy (1989). “Lancelot”

  11 Copy quote

• If poets often commit suicide, it is not because their poems are bad but because they are good. Whoever heard of a bad poet committing suicide? The reader is only a little better off. The exhilaration of a good poem lasts twenty minutes, an hour at most. Unlike the scientist, the artist has reentry problems that are frequent and catastrophic.

  Walker Percy

  Suicide, Artist, Twenties

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book”, p.65, Open Road Media

  23 Copy quote

• Nobody but a Southerner knows the wrenching rinsing sadness of the cities of the North.

  Walker Percy

  Sadness, Cities, Knows

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.88, Open Road Media

  9 Copy quote

• Free people have a serious problem with place, being in a place, using up a place, deciding which new place to rotate to. Americans ricochet around the United States like billiard balls.

  Walker Percy

  People, United States, Balls

  Walker Percy (2011). “Signposts in a Strange Land”, p.7, Open Road Media

  21 Copy quote

• Hatred strikes me as one of the few signs of life remaining in the world. This is another thing about the world which is upsidedown: all the friendly and likable people seem dead to me; only the haters seem alive.

  Walker Percy

  People, Hatred, Friendly

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.45, Open Road Media

  26 Copy quote

• I couldn't stand it. I still can't stand it. I can't stand the way things are. I cannot tolerate this age.

  Walker Percy

  Age, Way, Tolerate

  Walker Percy (1989). “Lancelot”

  9 Copy quote

• Jews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him.

  Walker Percy

  Hymns, Waiting, Catholic

  Walker Percy (2011). “Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World”, p.206, Open Road Media

  23 Copy quote

• Consciously cultivate the ordinary.

  Walker Percy

  Ordinary

  7 Copy quote

• Why has the South produced so many good writers? Because we got beat.

  Walker Percy

  Beats, Good Writers, South

  7 Copy quote

• Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.

  Walker Percy

  Old Neighborhood, Emptiness, Shows

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer: A Novel”, p.41, Open Road Media

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• I had discovered that a person does not have to be this or be that or be anything, not even oneself. One is free.

  Walker Percy

  Fun, Doe, Persons

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.51, Open Road Media

  6 Copy quote

• The enduring is something which must be accounted for. One cannot simply shrug it off.

  Walker Percy

  Endure

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.37, Open Road Media

  13 Copy quote

• In this world, goodness is destined to be defeated.

  Walker Percy

  World, Defeated, Goodness

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.27, Open Road Media

  12 Copy quote

• Losing hope is not so bad. There's something worse: losing hope and hiding it from yourself.

  Walker Percy

  Losing, Losing Hope, Hiding

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.84, Open Road Media

  7 Copy quote

• It makes people nervous for one to step out of one's role.

  Walker Percy

  People, Roles, Steps

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lancelot”, p.71, Open Road Media

  5 Copy quote

• A good title should be like a good metaphor. It should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious.

  Walker Percy

  Writing, Titles, Metaphor

  10 Copy quote

• This Midwestern sky is the nakedest loneliest sky in America. To escape it, people live inside and underground.

  Walker Percy

  Sky, America, People

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.88, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

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