“There is nothing so difficult to arrive at as the nature and personality of one's parents. Death, about which so much mystery… — William Maxwell Death Copy Share Image
It was lovely when you found students who responded to things you were enthusiastic about. — William Maxwell Enthusiastic Copy Share Image
Reading is rapture (or if it isn't, I put the book down meaning to go on with it later, and escape out… — William Maxwell Book Copy Share Image
If you turn the imagination loose like a hunting dog, it will often return with the bird in its mouth. — William Maxwell Bird Copy Share Image
I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn’t have gone through and couldn’t get back to the place I hadn’t… — William Maxwell Doors Copy Share Image
“Whether they are part of a home or home is a part of them is not a question children are prepared to… — William Maxwell Art life Copy Share Image
Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep. — William Maxwell Cold Copy Share Image
Love, even of the most ardent and soul-destroying kind, is never caught by the lens of the camera. — William Maxwell Cameras Copy Share Image
The nail doesn't choose the time or the circumstances in which it is drawn to the magnet — William Maxwell Circumstances Copy Share Image
“If your first plan fails, try another!” – Napoleon Hill If” — William Maxwell Strategy Copy Share Image
The reason life is so strange is that so often people have no choice, — William Maxwell Choice Copy Share Image
If I had had to write only about imaginary people, I would have had to close up my typewriter. I wrote about… — William Maxwell Deception Copy Share Image
“Without the heavy set aristocratic man snoring away on his side of the bed, without the fresh-eyed child whose hair ribbon needs… — William Maxwell Every day Copy Share Image
“For most people, having company for more than three of four days is a serious mistake, the equivalent to sawing a large… — William Maxwell Business Copy Share Image
“But he was careful. He didn’t make a simple remark without rehearsing it beforehand. And he continually removed the expression from his… — William Maxwell Kitchen table Copy Share Image
“That’s what I try to do—write sentences that won’t be like sand castles.” — William Maxwell Sand castle Copy Share Image
What we refer to confidently as memory is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often… — William Maxwell Form Copy Share Image
“With no sense of the passing of time, they held each other and lost themselves in the opening, unmasking tenderness that always… — William Maxwell Time Copy Share Image
My younger daughter told me recently that when she was a child she thought the typewriter was a toy that I went… — William Maxwell Children Copy Share Image
“Lots of Lincoln people had been to Chicago, and some even to New York, but very few had any firsthand knowledge of… — William Maxwell Coal miners Copy Share Image
What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory--meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been… — William Maxwell Cases Copy Share Image
His sadness was of the kind that is patient and without hope. — William Maxwell Hope Copy Share Image
“When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You can overcome it and become a winner, or let the obstacle… — William Maxwell Adversity Copy Share Image
“There was also a wall vase with artificial flowers in it. The flowers were made of crêpe paper dipped in wax. They… — William Maxwell Artificial flowers Copy Share Image
Satin and lace and brown velvet and the faint odor of violets. That was all which was left to him of his… — William Maxwell Brown Copy Share Image
