The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a…

Quote by John Cheever

Topics: John Cheever Quotes

I sometimes go back to walk through the ghostly remains of Sutton Place where the...

I sometimes go back to walk through the ghostly remains of Sutton Place where the...

The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just...

The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just...

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose...

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose...

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and...

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and...

That's the way I remember them, heading for an exit.

That's the way I remember them, heading for an exit.

Art is the triumph over chaos.

Art is the triumph over chaos.

What I am going to write is the last of what I have to say....

What I am going to write is the last of what I have to say....

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater...

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater...

A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle...

A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle...

People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction...

People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction...

Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction.

Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction.

Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed...

Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed...

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a...

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a...

The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just...

The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just...

A collection of short stories is generally thought to be a horrendous clinker; an enforced...

A collection of short stories is generally thought to be a horrendous clinker; an enforced...

Homesickness is nothing Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the...

Homesickness is nothing Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the...

I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do...

I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do...

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the...

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the...

Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house.

Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house.

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the...

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the...