All James Salter Quotes
- One alters the past to form the future but there is a real significance to the pattern which finally appears, which resists all further change. All
- The dreams are the skeleton of all reality. All
- The myriad past, it enters us and disappears. Except that within it, somewhere, like diamonds, exist the fragments that refuse to be consumed. Sifting through,… Collecting
- Solitude. One knows instinctively it has benefits that must be more deeply satisfying than those of other conditions, but still it is difficult. Benefits
- A film writer is very much like a party girl. While you're good-looking and still unlined, the possibilities seem endless. But your appeal doesn't last… Appeal
- Life is weather. Life is meals, Inspirational
- Happiness is often at its most intense when it is based on inequality. Based
- I'm a frotteur, someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is… Best
- Normally, what you’re envious of is a book, not a writer: standards, ideas, levels … almost nonexistent things. Almost Nonexistent
- To write? Because all this is going to vanish. The only thing left will be the prose and poems, the books, what is written down.… All
- WE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken,… Beached
- What is the ultimate impulse to write? Because all this is going to vanish. All
- My idea of writing is of unflinching and continual effort, somehow trying to find the right words until you reach a point where you can… Continual
- 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 not who I… Considered
- I don't hold myself dictated to by what everyone is saying, by the tabloids or popular opinion. I don't like bourgeois values. I say you… Bourgeois
- Your parents are the parents you know best. Your brother and sister, if you have them, are the brother and sister you know best. They… Best
- They lay silently. She was staring at something across the room. She was making him feel uncomfortable. 'It wouldn't work. It's the attraction of opposites,'… Across
- One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards. Why is it so difficult… Among
- I'm tired of my life, my clothes, the things I say. I'm hacking away at the surface, as at some kind of gray ice, trying… Break
- 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 Fall
- Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people. Aware
- Now they are lovers. The first, wild courses are ended. They have founded their domain. A satanic happiness follows. Courses
- The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The… Arrived
- As I look back, I see that life is like a game of solitaire and every once in a while there is a move. Game
- One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish. Believe