Quotes by John Fowles

About John Fowles:

John Robert Fowles was an English novelist of international stature, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work reflects the influence of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so m...

John Fowles

When you draw something it lives and when you photograph it it dies

John Fowles

Art's cruel. You can get away with murder with words. But a picture is like a window straight through to your inmost heart.

John Fowles

Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?

John Fowles

But however good you get at translating personality into line or paint it's no go if your personality isn't worth translating.

John Fowles

They pay thousands and thousands for the Van Goghs and Modiglianis they'd have spat on at the time they were painted. Guffawed at. Made coarse jokes about.

John Fowles

He said, one has to learn that painting well - in the academic and technical sense - comes right at the bottom of the list. I mean, you've got that ability. So have thousands.

John Fowles

I just think of things as beautiful or not. Can't you understand? I don't think of good or bad. Just of beautiful or ugly. I think a lot of nice things are ugly and a lot of nasty things are beautiful.

John Fowles

You’re beautiful. If you believe it, they’ll believe it.

John Fowles

I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive. but it's the dead me he wants. He wants me livin...

John Fowles

We girls are prewired to like things that make you suffer.

John Fowles

I have a strange illusion quite often. I think I've become deaf. I have to make a little noise to prove I'm not. I clear my throat to show myself that everything is normal. It's like the little Japanese girl they found in the ruins of Hiroshima. Ever...

John Fowles

Creative is my god. Technology my cherished lover.

John Fowles

It's despair at the lack of (I'm cheating, I didn't say all these things - but I'm going to write what I want to say as well as what I did) feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a...

John Fowles

Alive. Alive in the way that death is alive.

John Fowles

Someone should have warned me about love's dark underbelly, about the rejection and despair.

John Fowles

Fictional people are people, too, otherwise why would we care what happens to them?

John Fowles

I must fight with my weapons. Not his. Not selfishness and brutality and shame and resentment.

John Fowles

Dante.Oh,Dante.Seal me!Seal me so hard!”.He grabs my hips and pumps his toward mine.“Oh,Dante! You’re so hot when you seal souls.” I shove my idiot-of-a-best-friend off me and laugh.“What the hell was that?” I ask. “My new move.

John Fowles

Some people would say- you're only a drop, your word-breaking is only a drop, it wouldn't matter. But all the evil in the world's made up of little drops. It's silly talking about the unimportance of the little drops. The little drops and the ocean a...

John Fowles

Piers is always going on about how he hated Stowe. As if that solves everything, as if to hate something means it can't have affected you.

John Fowles

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Fowles
  • DescriptionBritish writer
  • BornMarch 31, 1926
  • DiedNovember 5, 2005
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Teacher
  • WorksThe Collector; The Magus; The French Lieutenant's Woman