The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable.
John CheeverRead
The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing helps individuals understand their lives and find their purpose.
In this quote, John Cheever emphasizes the intrinsic motivation behind writing, suggesting that it serves as a tool for individuals to process their experiences and uncover their significance in the world. The act of writing becomes a means of self-discovery and an avenue to articulate one's existence and contributions.
Themes
WritingSelf-DiscoveryPurposeMeaningLife
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, it could serve as an encouraging quote for aspiring authors.
More from John Cheever
All quotes βFor me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably.
John CheeverRead
For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.
John CheeverRead
The world that was not mine yesterday now lies spread out at my feet, a splendor. I seem, in the middle of the night, to have returned to the world of apples, the orchards of Heaven. Perhaps I should take my problems to a shrink, or perhaps I should enjoy the apples that I have, streaked with color like the evening sky.
John CheeverRead
What I am going to write is the last of what I have to say. I will say that literature is the only consciousness we possess and that its role as consciousness must inform us of our ability to comprehend the hideous danger of nuclear power.
John CheeverRead
Art is the triumph over chaos.
John CheeverRead
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Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas.
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Did you know that the human voice is the only pure instrument? That it has notes no other instrument has? It's like being between the keys of a piano. The notes are there, you can sing them, but they can't be found on any instrument. That's like me. I live in between this. I live in both worlds, the black and white world.
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