There came a time when I felt I was not going to be satisfied with life unless I could write. — James Salter Copy Share Image
“One should not believe too easily in a life which can easily vanish.” — James Salter Copy Share Image
“Life is separated by scars, like the rings in the inside of a tree.” — James Salter Copy Share Image
ONE OF THE LAST GREAT REALIZATIONS is that life will not be what you dreamed. — James Salter Copy Share Image
As I look back, I see that life is like a game of solitaire and every once in a while there is… — James Salter Copy Share Image
There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands.… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“But knowledge does not protect one. Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside.… — James Salter Copy Share Image
But that isn't my life. I have said many times I don't want to be considered one who once flew fighters. That's… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands.” — James Salter Copy Share Image
“There is no happiness like this: quiet mornings, light from the river, the weekend ahead. They lived a Russian life, a rich… — james salter Copy Share Image
I like men who have known the best and the worst, whose life has been anything but a smooth trip. Storms have… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“There are men who seem to have seized the trunk of life, and he was one of them. It might not be… — James Salter Copy Share Image
You can write about other people and their ideas and life without having lived it, but even your perception of that is… — James Salter Copy Share Image
There is no situation like the open road, and seeing things completely afresh. I'm used to traveling. It's not a question of… — James Salter Copy Share Image
In general, American life is more easy-going. And civic pride, national pride in a cultural sense, is great in America. I think… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“The freedom she meant was self-conquest. It was not a natural state. It was meant only for those who would risk everything… — James Salter Copy Share Image
Being somebody: it's one of the ideas in life, no? That's what my father made clear to me. The importance of being… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“I am going to describe her life from the inside outward, from its core, the house as well, rooms in which life… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“...at a luncheon, I sat next to a green-eyed young woman, a poet, who declared loftily that you learned nothing from books,… — James Salter Copy Share Image
Of them all, it was the true love. Of them all, it was the best. That other sumptuous love which made one… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“He had his life—it was not worth much—not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had… — James Salter Copy Share Image
I'm tired of my life, my clothes, the things I say. I'm hacking away at the surface, as at some kind of… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“You must go further than I did," Nedra said. "You know that." "Further?" "With your life. You must become free." She did… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“...alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had… — James Salter Copy Share Image
Children are our crop, our fields, our earth. They are birds let loose into darkness. They are errors renewed. Still, they are… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“Miyata was fluent and intelligent. Nothing was beyond his curiosity. He seemed to be above the confusion of life, as if he… — James Salter Copy Share Image
You are perfectly entitled to invent your life and to claim that it's true. — James Salter Copy Share Image
“She comes to life with a soft exhausted sound, like someone saved from drowning.” — James Salter Copy Share Image
One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish. — James Salter Copy Share Image
In a certain sense, a writer is an exile, an outsider, always reporting on things, and it is part of his life… — James Salter Copy Share Image
Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am… — James Salter Copy Share Image
But knowledge does not protect one. Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside.… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“Summer mornings, the light of the world pouring in and the silence. It was a barefoot life, the cool of the night… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“Life is contemptuous of knowledge; it forces it to sit in the anterooms, to wait outside. Passion, energy, lies: these are what… — James Salter Copy Share Image
The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a… — James Salter Copy Share Image
One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards. Why is… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“Eve was tall. Her face had cheekbones. Her shoulders slumped when she walked. The shelves in her living room were bent beneath… — James Salter Copy Share Image
It seems to me that literature is giving way a little bit to the immediacy of other diversions, other forms of entertainment. What will… — James Salter Copy Share Image
Women fall in love when they get to know you. Men are just the opposite. When they finally know you they're ready to leave — James Salter Copy Share Image
I write in longhand. I am accustomed to that proximity, that feel of writing. Then I sit down and type. — James Salter Copy Share Image
A writer writes a book. People read it. You don't know what they're reading, really. You read a review and think, "That is so… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“Strauss’s, for instance, which begins in the heavens. The artist doesn’t ascend to glory, he appears in it, he already has it and the… — James Salter Copy Share Image
Normally, what you’re envious of is a book, not a writer: standards, ideas, levels … almost nonexistent things. — James Salter Copy Share Image
Sometimes I write with a particular person in mind. I think it's fair to say that I write for a perceptive reader. You have… — James Salter Copy Share Image
Lots of scripts are written and not made, even scripts that people want to make. — James Salter Copy Share Image
I'd given up everything to be a writer, and if I didn't then go on to do that - to write - then I… — James Salter Copy Share Image
“One should not believe too easily in a life which can easily vanish.” — James Salter Copy Share Image
“Life is separated by scars, like the rings in the inside of a tree.” — James Salter Copy Share Image
