Peter De Vries Quotes

Quotes about:

• I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning.

  Peter De Vries

  Life, Morning, Inspiration

  49 Copy quote

• Life is a zoo in a jungle.

  Peter De Vries

  Life, Zoos, Bad Day

  Peter De Vries (2014). “The Vale of Laughter: A Novel”, p.86, Open Road Media

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• The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character.

  Peter De Vries

  Love, Marriage, Wedding

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• The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

  Peter De Vries

  Inspirational, Marriage, Children

  Tunnel of Love (1954) ch. 8

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• A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.

  Peter De Vries

  Funny, Mothers Day, Mom

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• It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

  Peter De Vries

  God, Fear, Order

  Mackerel Plaza ch. 1 (1958)

  51 Copy quote

• Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

  Peter De Vries

  Inspirational, Motivational, Food

  Comfort Me with Apples Ch. 15

  94 Copy quote

• I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.

  Peter De Vries

  Work, Writing, Written Word

  85 Copy quote

• We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.

  Peter De Vries

  Sports, Earth, Cooperation

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Let Me Count the Ways: A Novel”, p.177, Open Road Media

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• The idea of a Supreme Being who creates a world in which one creature is designed to eat another in order to subsist, and then pass a law saying, "Thou shalt not kill," is so monstrously, immeasurably, bottomlessly absurd that I am at a loss to understand how mankind has entertained or given it house room all this long.

  Peter De Vries

  Loss, Order, Law

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• A hundred years ago Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter was given an A for adultery; today she would rate no better than a C-plus.

  Peter De Vries

  Years, Letters, Today

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Reuben, Reuben: A Novel”, p.150, University of Chicago Press

  28 Copy quote

• When I see a paragraph shrinking under my eyes like a strip of bacon in a skillet, I know I'm on the right track.

  Peter De Vries

  Eye, Track, Shrinking

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• The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance.

  Peter De Vries

  Laughter, Humor, Another Chance

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• What baffles me is the comfort people find in the idea that somebody dealt this mess. Blind and meaningless chance seems to me so much more congenial - or at least less horrible. Prove to me that there is a God and I will really begin to despair.

  Peter De Vries

  Ideas, People, Despair

  8 Copy quote

• The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.

  Peter De Vries

  Nature, Science, World

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Let Me Count the Ways: A Novel”, p.192, Open Road Media

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• Marriage has driven more than one man to sex.

  Peter De Vries

  Sex, Men, Driven

  Peter De Vries (2014). “The Tunnel of Love: A Novel”, p.64, University of Chicago Press

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• There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.

  Peter De Vries

  Family, Children, Humorous

  8 Copy quote

• The rich aren't like us, they pay less taxes.

  Peter De Vries

  Business, Pay, Finance

  7 Copy quote

• Pain is the question mark turned like a fishhook in the human heart.

  Peter De Vries

  Pain, Heart, Mark

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• Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation — the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline.

  Peter De Vries

  Writing, Discipline, Drunk

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Reuben, Reuben: A Novel”, p.242, University of Chicago Press

  19 Copy quote

• Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked.

  Peter De Vries

  Hate, Hate Me

  Peter De Vries (1967). “The vale of laughter”

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• "You ought to be ashamed," a woman in an Easter bonnet told Stein. "Your race gave us our religion..." "From ancient polytheism, the belief in lots of gods," the woman continued a little more eruditely, "the Hebrew nation led us on to the idea that there is only one." "Which is just a step from the truth," said Stein.

  Peter De Vries

  Easter, Race, Ideas

  Peter De Vries (2012). “The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel”, p.207, University of Chicago Press

  6 Copy quote

• Time heals nothing — which should make us the better able to minister.

  Peter De Vries

  Time, Able, Ministers

  "The Blood of the Lamb: A Novel".

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• This human nature is shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection.

  Peter De Vries

  May, Stuff, Irony

  "Mrs. Wallop".

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• We pay for security with boredom, for adventure with bother.

  Peter De Vries

  Adventure, Boredom, Pay

  Peter De Vries (2014). “Without a Stitch in Time: A Selection of the Best Humorous Short Pieces”, p.32, University of Chicago Press

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