--- title: "1 Following orders Quotes By Walker Percy" description: "1 Following orders quotes by Walker Percy. Plus more from Walker Percy and more Following orders sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37d/walker-percy-1958_adventure_we-ve-spoken-of-the-knights-of-the-holy_3037144.jpg" --- > [“We've spoken of the Knights of the Holy Grail, Percival. Do you know what I was? The Knight of the Unholy Grail. In times like these when everyone is wonderful, what is needed is a quest for evil. You should…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/we-ve-spoken-of-the-knights-of-the-holy-grail-percival-do-you-know/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37d/walker-percy-1958_adventure_we-ve-spoken-of-the-knights-of-the-holy_3037144.jpg) ## More by Walker Percy > [“Do you know what he told me after lying under a cliff for thirty six hours with two inches of his femur sticking out?…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/do-you-know-what-he-told-me-after-lying-under-a-cliff-for-thirty-six/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [Americans are the nicest, most generous, and sentimental people on earth. Yet Americans have killed more unborn children than any nation in history.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/americans-are-the-nicest-most-generous-and-sentimental-people-on/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [“The real wonder is not that the Cosmos is now seen as wonderful but that it is not. Despite its inconceivable vastness, it is…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/the-real-wonder-is-not-that-the-cosmos-is-now-seen-as-wonderful-but/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [“Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal. Others have been corrupt, but leave it to us…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/ours-is-the-only-civilization-in-history-which-has-enshrined/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [ \[In art\] you are telling the reader or the listener or the viewer something he already knows but which he doesn't quite know that… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/in-art-you-are-telling-the-reader-or-the-listener-or-the-viewer/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [“People usually told him the same joke two or three times.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/people-usually-told-him-the-same-joke-two-or-three-times/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [For the world is broken, sundered, busted down the middle, self ripped from self and man pasted back together as mythical monster, half angel,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/for-the-world-is-broken-sundered-busted-down-the-middle-self-ripped/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [Nobody but a Southerner knows the wrenching rinsing sadness of the cities of the North.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/nobody-but-a-southerner-knows-the-wrenching-rinsing-sadness-of-the/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [“For me, all signifiers fit me, one as well as another. I am rascal, hero, craven, brave, treacherous, loyal, at once the secret hero…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/for-me-all-signifiers-fit-me-one-as-well-as-another-i-am-rascal-hero/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [“But the expectation of the self, to be informed in its nothingness--if only I can get out of this old place and into the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/but-the-expectation-of-the-self-to-be-informed-in-its-nothingness-if/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [Nothing remains but desire, and desire comes howling down Elysian Fields like a mistral.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/nothing-remains-but-desire-and-desire-comes-howling-down-elysian/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [“A variant of the amnesic-plot device is the inadvertent return of the amnesiac to home territory, where he is welcomed by a lovely woman,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/a-variant-of-the-amnesic-plot-device-is-the-inadvertent-return-of-the/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [A novel is what you call something that won't sell if you call it poems or short stories.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/a-novel-is-what-you-call-something-that-won-t-sell-if-you-call-it/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/the-search-is-what-anyone-would-undertake-if-he-were-not-sunk-in-the/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) > [“Am I, in my search, a hundred miles ahead of my fellow Americans or a hundred miles behind them? That is to say: Have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/am-i-in-my-search-a-hundred-miles-ahead-of-my-fellow-americans-or-a/) [Walker Percy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/walker-percy/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/following-orders/walker-percy/#itemlist", "name": "1 Following orders Quotes By Walker Percy", "numberOfItems": 1, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“We've spoken of the Knights of the Holy Grail, Percival. Do you know what I was? The Knight of the Unholy Grail. In times like these when everyone is wonderful, what is needed is a quest for evil. You should be interested! Such a quest serves God's cause! How? Because the Good proves nothing. When everyone is wonderful, nobody bothers with God. If you had ten thousand Albert Schweitzers giving their lives for their fellow men, do you think anyone would have a second thought about God? Or suppose the Lowell Professor of Religion at Harvard should actually find the Holy Grail, dig it up in an Israeli wadi, properly authenticate it, carbon date it, and present it to the Metropolitan Museum. Millions of visitors! I would be as curious as the next person and would stand in line for hours to see it. But what different would it make in the end? People would be interested for a while, yes. This is an age of interest. But suppose you could show me one \"sin,\" one pure act of malevolence. A different cup of tea! That would bring matters to a screeching halt. But we have plenty of evil around you say. What about Hitler, the gas ovens and so forth? What about them? As everyone knows and says, Hitler was a madman. And it seems nobody else was responsible. Everyone was following orders. It is even possible that there was no such order, that it was all a bureaucratic mistake. Show me a single \"sin.\" One hundred and twenty thousand dead at Hiroshima? Where was the evil of that? Was Harry Truman evil? As for the pilot and bombardier, they were by all accounts wonderful fellows, good fathers and family men. \"Evil\" is surely the clue to this age, the only quest appropriate to the age. For everything and everyone's either wonderful or sick and nothing is evil. God may be absent, but what if one should find the devil? Do you think I wouldn't be pleased to meet the devil? Ha, ha, I'd shake his hand like a long-lost friend. The mark of the age is that terrible things happen but there is no \"evil\" involved. People are either crazy, miserable, or wonderful, so where does the \"evil\" come in? There I was forty-five years old and I didn't know whether there was \"evil\" in the world.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Walker Percy" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/walker-percy/we-ve-spoken-of-the-knights-of-the-holy-grail-percival-do-you-know/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37d/walker-percy-1958_adventure_we-ve-spoken-of-the-knights-of-the-holy_3037144.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37d/walker-percy-1958_adventure_we-ve-spoken-of-the-knights-of-the-holy_3037144.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/37d/walker-percy-1958_adventure_we-ve-spoken-of-the-knights-of-the-holy_3037144.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“We've spoken of the Knights of the Holy Grail, Percival. Do you know what I was? 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