Peter De Vries Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• I can still hear my mother wailing over some new kitchen crisis, "Oh God," and my father answering cozily from the silo, "Were you calling me, dear?

  Peter De Vries

  Mother, Father, Kitchen

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Comfort Me with Apples: A Novel”, p.7, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• Exercise is an unnatural act.

  Peter De Vries

  Exercise, Unnatural

  Peter De Vries (1982). “Forever panting”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Do you believe in astrology? -I don't even believe in astronomy.

  Peter De Vries

  Believe, Astrology, Astronomy

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• All couples must bear the strain of getting acquainted, having been, up to then, merely intimate.

  Peter De Vries

  Couple, Bears, Intimacy

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Comfort Me with Apples: A Novel”, p.26, Open Road Media

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• I tried to write worse but it was no good; my generalizations came out as before, each more exquisite than the last. I grew discouraged.

  Peter De Vries

  Writing, Lasts, Discouraged

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Comfort Me with Apples: A Novel”, p.24, Open Road Media

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• Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter.

  Peter De Vries

  Diction, Cookies, Shapes

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• The tuba is certainly the most intestinal of instruments, the very lower bowel of music.

  Peter De Vries

  Tubas, Instruments

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• "You don't believe in God," I said to Stein. "God is a word banging around in the human nervous system. He exists about as much as Santa Claus." "Santa Claus has had a tremendous influence, exist or not." "For children." "Lots of saints have died for God with a courage that's hardly childish." "That's part of the horror. It's all a fantasy. It's all for nothing."

  Peter De Vries

  Children, Believe, Atheism

  Peter De Vries (2012). “The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel”, p.182, University of Chicago Press

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• The writer can only explore the inner space of his characters by perceptively navigating his own.

  Peter De Vries

  Character, Space

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Without a Stitch in Time: A Selection of the Best Humorous Short Pieces”, p.316, University of Chicago Press

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• Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy.

  Peter De Vries

  Soul, Coats, Tweed

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• Try the Lamentations of Jeremiah. They always pick me up.

  Peter De Vries

  Pick Me Up, Despair, Trying

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• If there's anything I hate it's the word humorist-I feel like countering with the word seriousist.

  Peter De Vries

  Hate, Humor, Feels

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• Mrs Thicknesse and I agreed that a business of his own was probably the only solution for him because he was obviously unemployable.

  Peter De Vries

  Entrepreneur, Solutions

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Comfort Me with Apples: A Novel”, p.74, Open Road Media

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• Man is vile, I know, but people are wonderful.

  Peter De Vries

  Men, People, Wonderful

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Let Me Count the Ways: A Novel”, p.4, Open Road Media

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• ... it is a fact universally acknowledged that a husband is the most ridiculous thing on earth, except for a bachelor.

  Peter De Vries

  Marriage, Husband, Earth

  Peter De Vries (1982). “Forever panting”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  4 Copy quote

• People rarely do what they don't want to.

  Peter De Vries

  People, Want, Action

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• We turned on one another deep, drowned gazes, and exchanged a kiss that reduced my bones to rubber and my brain to gruel.

  Peter De Vries

  Kissing, Romantic Love, Brain

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Comfort Me with Apples: A Novel”, p.15, Open Road Media

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• Why is the awfulness of families such a popular reason for starting another?

  Peter De Vries

  Reason, Starting, Awfulness

  Peter De Vries (2012). “The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel”, p.36, University of Chicago Press

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• You can make a sordid thing sound like a brilliant drawing-room comedy. Probably a fear we have of facing up to the real issues. Could you say we were guilty of Noel Cowardice?

  Peter De Vries

  Real, Issues, Drawing

  52 Copy quote

• Rather than waste precious time arguing, I went up and started serving my "sentence" without delay. It was usually about an hour for epigrams; somewhat longer for a paradox.

  Peter De Vries

  Punishment, Delay, Waste

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• We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them.

  Peter De Vries

  Love, Brother, Sibling

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• I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration: not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is.

  Peter De Vries

  Stars, Joy, Negative

  Peter De Vries (2012). “The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel”, p.164, University of Chicago Press

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• What we are assigned to bear is in a sense a measure of our stature.

  Peter De Vries

  Bears, Stature

  Peter De Vries (1982). “Forever panting”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Are you pro- or anti-macassar?

  Peter De Vries

  Design

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• Anyone informed that the universe is expanding and contracting in pulsations of eighty billion years has a right to ask. What's in it for me?

  Peter De Vries

  Science, Years, Expanding Universe

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