It is not, as somebody once wrote, the smell of corn bread that calls us back from death; it is the lights and signs of love and friendship. — John Cheever Copy Share Image
Love with its paraphernalia of sexuality, jealousy, nostalgia and exaltation was easier to reognize than friendship, which seemed to have (excepting athletic equipment) no paraphernalia at all. — John Cheever Copy Share Image
The poet or storyteller who feels that he is competing with a superb double play in the World Series is a lost man. One… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
“She perceived vaguely the pitiful corruption of the adult world; how cruel and frail it was, like a worn piece of burlap, patched with… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
For lovers, touch is metamorphosis. All the parts of their bodies seem to change, and they seem to become something different and better. — John Cheever Copy Share Image
“I dream that someone in space says to me: So let us rush, then, to see the world. It is shaped like an egg,… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
I don't like to see all my energies, all of my youth, wasted in fur coats and radios and slipcovers. — John Cheever Copy Share Image
Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
At my back I hear the word-"homosexual"-and it seems to split my world in two.... It is ignorance, our ignorance of one another, that… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
One would never have guessed that the world had such a capacity for genuine grief. The most we can do is exploit our memories… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
“His stepmother -wearing a nightgown for comfort and a flowered hat for looks- had spent her days sitting in their parlor window in Baltimore… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood. Stand up straight. Admire the world.… — John Cheever Copy Share Image
