John Fowles Life Quotations

The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.

I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.

It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world. It's despair that perfectly normal young men can be made vicious and evil because they've won a lot of money. And then do what you've done to me.

I am going to explain to you why we went to war. Why mankind always does to war. It is not social or political. It is not countries that go to war, but men. It is like salt. Once one has been to war, one has salt for the rest of one's life. Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because it is the one thing that stops women from laughing at them.

If you want to be true to life, start lying about it

Only fools think our attitude to our fellow men is a thing distinct from our attitude to 'lesser' life on this planet.