Walker Percy Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Home may be where the heart is but it's no place to spend Wednesday afternoon.

  Walker Percy

  Home, Heart, Afternoon

  WALKER PERCY (1983). “LOST IN THE COSMOS”

  29 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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

  Walker Percy

  World, Defeated, Goodness

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

  13 Copy quote

• Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?

  Walker Percy

  Eye, Past, Long

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book”, p.8, Open Road Media

  12 Copy quote

• What nuns don't realize is that they look better in nun clothes than J.C. Penney pantsuits.

  Walker Percy

  Clothes, Looks, Superstitions

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lancelot: A Novel”, p.7, Open Road Media

  11 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

• 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”

  13 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

• 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

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• Peace is only better than war when it's not hell too. War being hell makes sense.

  Walker Percy

  War, Politics, Hell

  6 Copy quote

• 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

• 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 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

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

  Walker Percy

  Beats, Good Writers, South

  7 Copy quote

• Consciously cultivate the ordinary.

  Walker Percy

  Ordinary

  7 Copy quote

• Bad books always lie. They lie most of all about the human condition.

  Walker Percy

  Lying, Book, Human Condition

  Walker Percy (2011). “Signposts in a Strange Land: Essays”, p.251, Open Road Media

  7 Copy quote

• Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? I remember at the time of the wreck-- people were so kind and helpful and solid. Everyone pretended that our lives until that moment had been every bit as real as the moment itself and that the future must be real too, when the truth was that our reality had been purchased only by Lyell's death. In another hour or so we had all faded out again and gone our dim ways.

  Walker Percy

  Real, People, Gone

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

  11 Copy quote

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